DR. EMORY D. JONES - POEMS

Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in high schools and various community colleges.  He has four hundred and seventy-five credits including publication in such journals as Writer’s Digest, Pegasus, Free Xpressions Magazine, The Storyteller, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Gravel, Pasques Petals, The Pink Chameleon, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS.  He is retired and lives in Iuka, Mississippi.
 

WHAT COLOR IS THE WIND?
​

​It is green in the Spring
When the breeze rustles trees
And the leaves dance a quadrille
In the warmth of sun.
It is yellow when the pollen blows
Bringing the stuffy nose
And sneezes--
But laying
A golden patina over all of nature.
It is brown with the twirl of maple flyers
Fluttering through the air
Like tiny helicopters.
It is clear as water
Kissing your cheek
When you lean over a brook
To drink.
 

RAIN REGIMENT
​

​ 
                                                            While standing in my living room
                                                            I watch a regiment of rain.  It sweeps
                                                            Across the hills like infantry,
                                                            Attacking the dusty crests and tumbling down
                                                            Valleys to pause and climb the other sides.
 
                                                            Nearer it approaches with its steady drum,
                                                            Marching in ranks and files--
                                                            It batters across the asphalt road,
                                                            Each drop a shattered diamond in the wind.
 
                                                            My flowers flutter and dance a wild fandango
                                                            As it now stalks across my yard
                                                            And smashes against my picture window,
                                                            A blurry meld of liquid rainbow
                                                            It prances on my roof and then is gone.
 
                                                            I walk outside and smell the breath
                                                            Of grateful, moist earth--
                                                            Greens, yellows, reds, pinks and blues
                                                            Are richer for the assault of rain.
 
 

GOOD GOD
​

​(A Gloss based upon the following lines from
“Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen
 I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die….)
 
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And, led by His Holy Spirit, we will find
Blessed happiness, a soul of peace,
And in the middle of our strife release
From struggle and a joyful, peaceful mind--
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind.
 
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The worm must come before the butterfly
Or human hearts, when softening, must break
And flood the eyes.  But then how could he take
Notice of all the little hurts we cry
Unless He stoops to quibble and tell why?
 
The little buried mole continues blind
With little cares of what he leaves behind
Because within his world there are none who see
Or strive to rise out of the earth.  But we
Still question Nature that would forever bind
The little buried mole to continue blind.
 
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Invade the realm of mole, in earth to lie
While all above us continues as before,
Not knowing, until then, that death’s a door?
But then we understand God’s reason why,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die.
 
 
 
 

   Haiku Sequence ​

                                                          Yellow butterflies
                                                            Flitting across green meadows
                                                            Like dancing sunshine
 
                                                            The insect monarchs
                                                            Skimming with orange and black wings
                                                            Holding court in spring.
 
                                                            Butterflies resting
                                                            In the shade of the oak trees
                                                            Like forest jewels.
 
                                                            Spring sunshine warms
                                                            The cocoon on the tree branch
                                                            Butterfly will hatch.
 

​SACRED MUSIC
​

(A gloss on the following lines from
“The Eolian Harp”
By
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

                                         ​(Methinks it should have been impossible
                                                            Not to love all things in a world so filled;
                                                            Where the breeze warbles and the mute still air
                                                            Is Music slumbering on her instrument.)

                                                          Methinks it should have been impossible
                                                            Not to feel the rhythm of the spheres,
                                                            The joyous music of the Lord’s which still
                                                            In undertones so permeates our ears--
                                                            Methinks it should have been impossible
 
                                                            Not to love all things in a world so filled
                                                            With symphonies of His created score
                                                            With chords so firm and melody that’s trilled
                                                            By every living thing that we adore--
                                                            Not to love all things in a world so filled
 
                                                            Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
                                                            Is but the pause before the music swells
                                                            Again in great crescendo of our prayer
                                                            Of praise to Him from everyone who dwells
                                                            Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
 
                                                            Is Music slumbering on her instrument
                                                            In dreams of the eternal song to Him
                                                            Who orchestrates the harmonies He meant
                                                            To elevate our souls--our silent hymn
                                                            Is Music slumbering on her instrument.