BRASS RING SHINING is a poem about making leaps of faith all of the time...simply, all of the time....

BRASS RING SHINING

Where Alex lays
his young blond hair
on the satin pillow
and never sings again

never lifts the guitar
writes the notes
tells the funny joke
laughs his gentle laugh

Where Dixie lays
her quiet love
wondering, at times, where
she lost the chances
for happiness

not knowing happiness
well enough
to understand
quite how

to grasp the brass ring

let us
you and I
place flowers on the
grass of their young desires

that rarely had
and rarely gave
leaps of hope
of faith
of love

one single chance...

let us rest together
on the stairs
and not be afraid
to go on
without their lost
hands and eyes

let us forgive them
for being less
than the bringers-to-be
of love for us

for themselves....

we had so much to give them
had they had simple needing

so much love to surround them
had they had need for arms
around them

they could give
a bit, another bit...
but could not grasp
in sweet abandon

at all the flowers
all the brass rings
we held out to them
on the merry-go-round
we call life....

we must forgive them
for not being enough
even for themselves

must hold each other

in wonder

that finally
when childhood is far away

we can ourselves
grasp brass rings together
our hands reaching together

catching the prize
in each other's love...
a gleam of true gold
and kept promises

every
single
time.....