By Don Kenton Henry

You were a beauty rare

I was a man with dearth of words

A paucity of poetry I claimed

I cursed my thoughts should go unheard

You, lover of song and mirth ― how could you have cared

For I without a worthy tribute

O what I’d given to have found a way

To tell you what I was feeling

And taken way your breath

To have set your heart to reeling

But no bard was there about

To take to task, for words to lend

So this simple man asked nature’s hand

I took a knee and begged the forest shout

Asked the words come from the land

And they answered

It started with the seeds of life, sprouting in the fertile ground

And soon the rustling of the leaves began to plead my case of love for me

So I stepped back and listened to a sound sent by the sea

It recognized the yearnings of my heart and sent a long and pulling tide

I watched the wind catch and whirl you with a waltz

And the clouds offered a warm summer rain which fell in three quarter time

As a gentle rolling thunder played a whispered bass

The sun appeared and caressed your face as though it were my touch

Then the sky drew a curtain and the moon lit like a distant lantern for you to see more clearly

And a southern breeze whispered in your ear ’twas me who worked their hand

The seeds the leaves the ground the tide the sun and moon the wind the southern breeze the land

And you listened

And you heard

And you took my hand and said what a poet was I to command nature’s greatest gifts ―

For elements that shape mountains earth and stone to heed my beck and answer to my call

And the petals of a million flowers fell like confetti upon us from a rose hued morning sky

And the willows no longer weeping did a curtsy

And lonely darkness said good-bye