Love and Relationships
YOUR LOVE
One hope, one dream, one stirring breeze upon a languid sea.
One sun, one moon, a single star has captured me.
O hated storms that will arise and leave boughs stripped and bare
Cursed storms then deadening calms of pointless pain we share.
My rose is red, my rose is white, my rose is always near.
Mere words can scarcely tell my rose how much I hold her dear.
O rose, O hope, O light, O Star, consume this craggy briar
And hold me fast but tenderly within your warming fire.
Jim Davis
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FOR REBECCA AND RYAN
(On the occasion of their wedding)
Some sailors savour the salty life, and live for the wide-open sea.
Some sailors crave the whipping winds and the brine far-flung on the scree.
Some sailors pant for ports of call and bury themselves in the night
And some will harbour a secret deep and look to the sea for flight.
But I will live for the ship I sail – a ship who is known to me.
In the night, I hear her lonely moans and her groans as she’s running free.
We’re sailing out from a harbour cold to a place she knows so well
Where her crew is all, and her masts are tall, and she dances an endless swell.
She carries me safe through the heaviest storm, though we both may ache from the strain.
Together, we trip the tempest’s trough but rise to each crest yet again.
I know this ship, I love this ship, she means everything to me
More than the sea, more than the sky and more than a quiet lee.
Jim Davis
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EVEN WHEN YOU’RE SAD
Does a flower know the warmth of its hue?
Does the early morning, the gift of its dew?
Or a gentle rain, the life that it brings?
Or the tiny songbird, my joy as it sings?
And you gentle dear-heart, even when you’re sad
The measure of your meaning to my heart so glad?
Jim Davis
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REMEMBER…
Wherever winds will blow
Wherever waters will flow
Wherever flowers will grow
My love will always be with you.
Jim Davis
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Searching for Purpose
IMMORTALITY
Nothing saves a mountain, and nothing binds the sea.
No one whispers to the wind of immortality.
No atoms changeless in the heavens: no sun, no moon, nor stars above.
Nothing lasts forever… except the tears of love.
Jim Davis
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FULFILLED
Whose love upon this field of broken dreams
Would ease the dawn of dusk’s encroaching flight.
Or hovering, without touching, mend the seams
That shroud the soul to shut out darkest night.
How blest if we could sense each passing hour
Without the pain of knowing time’s expanse
And hold each precious moment – like a flower –
Complete, without regret or forward glance.
Though mighty kings of stone entombed in clay
Look out upon a vast and endless sea
Their monuments and conquests swept away
As those before, and those still yet to be,
Go strut upon a stage of endless meaning
And cleave the void of gloom – true purpose gleaning.
Tears of love transcending all the ages
Confounding dead and often quoted sages.
Jim Davis
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LOOK INTO A MIRROR
Look into a mirror, peer into the eyes,
Exit to a solemn face and see a parent’s guise.
Now gaze beyond the mirror, and survey a darkened soul,
And wonder on a Father who loves and makes you whole.
What makes the Source of Everything send a blameless One,
To call out in the shadows of a life lived in the Son.
Just a fleeting moment, just a grain of sand,
Upon a finite beach, in time-trapped memory-land:
When you look into a mirror and peer into the eyes,
And exit to a solemn face to see a parent’s guise.
Jim Davis
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Honouring Others
REQUIEM FOR THE POET
Whose wondrous words would through time’s portal tell
Of human nature’s highest heights achieved.
Or son of king within whom rages swell
At mankind’s bestial nature, now relieved.
Rapture, rage and reason all entwined
And kindled to a most celestial pyre.
Joy and sorrow in meat and marrow engrained
And burning to illumine with immortal fire.
Walk on, O Ghost, through night into the day
No longer bound by human flesh and bone.
From ramparts past to modern hearts of clay
Speak and break silence of the stone.
Was there tomb that hoped to hide the mind
Of such as he who loved a world half blind?
Jim Davis
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TRUE BEAUTY (dedicated to a friend: Peggy)
Her man was the pride of her tribe
As they hunted the tundra and ice.
The blade of that wind could describe
How her fire of resolve would suffice.
Her children would never know hunger
Nor fear rise unchecked in their minds.
From sweet moments of breath
To her last thought in death
Their wounds would be lovingly tended.
So skillful was he in the tracking.
So honest their claiming the prize.
The sound of her firewood crackling
The warmth of her fire in his eyes.
Her children so safely at play
On the edge of the darkness of night.
Their laughter and childhood flowing
Her wisdom and lovingness growing
All sadnesses lovingly mended.
He looked past the fire and the night –
Their happiness won to prevail.
Her counsel so firm and so right
Yet her footsteps so soft on the trail.
Her children increasing in stature;
Their pattern imprinted so clearly.
Values both timeless and precious
Transcending the ages so endless
True beauty – so needed …extended.
Jim Davis
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Jim Davis Creative Arts: Paintings, Poetry, Prose, and Commentary 