It’s nature’s way of giving eyes to see beyond the darkened ridge
to gift you lyric-ode that spans rushing water neath the swaying bridge.
To hear in chill, in darkened night, the owl’s hoot but not her fright.
To tread alone secure, no need for truth-less light.
To know the will of when to walk and when to fight.
Like the soul afraid of dying that never learned to live
shelved it tires, grows stale, leaves nothing left to give.
It can’t be bought like sweets in a simple country store.
It can’t be taught, endowed, it demands that much more.
To challenge life’s flight, its very call to dare
is to know the distance between one’s fate and needless fear-
to travel on stripped of care yet loneliness often companion here.
Its thoughts that race, that challenge, defy and balk,
there’s no soft hushed tones in the fierceness of its walk,
in its arms life’s debate becomes so much more than idle talk.
It breaths, it sings, its journeys mighty roar, the daring dodge of our boundless tour.
It greets unswept pathways with unmixed ease ever in search of more to please.
And when at death’s doorstep it stops to look once more,
I’ll smile as I walk through the final door.
Stanley L Cohen 13th June 2015
caged but undaunted 