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Photo by Edward McKuen 12 June, 2005.
© 2005 by Stanyan Music Group. All Rights Reserved.
A Thought for Today
God may work in mysterious ways but in or
out of the mystery HE can always use a little help.
To Begin With
I completed Celebrations of the Heart in September of 1975 and it was
published the following month by Simon & Schuster and Montcalm
Productions. Over the years it has been reprinted 21 times.
For this edition I cut five verses comprising 39 lines and added a final
sentence to the first poem, “Scrub Pines. “ I didn’t fiddle too much
with “Stop” and left “Darlington Poem as I originally envisioned it.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Three Poems from Celebrations of the Heart
Scrub Pines
Scrub pines struggle
through the underbrush,
sideways, d
o
w
n,
up
then again.
Never really heading skyward
they seem happy to survive
if not really thrive.
Nature ignores the scrub,
it seems to caution
get there on your own,
wherever there is.
I am not sure
that even that slow growing
stunted, wanna be tree
could tell you
where it is heading
and which branch
leads the way.
Scrub pines finally
find their way.
Proud, predictably
unpredictable
they shoot up through
the under brush and belly
of long grass
in their own good time.
Their lack of beauty is their beauty.
Stop
What is the next hour
worth to you?
What about the days to come?
Is that hour
and are those days
worth all the young men
in the streets
and parks
that being here with me
will make you miss?
Count carefully.
But wait until I have left to answer.
-from Celebrations of the Heart, 1975. Revised with new material 8/30/05
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