Stella Nova

By A.E. Bayne

What elegant light
Folding like yellow jacket zippers,
Stella Nova,
Brightest star,
Dead, though far -
Will you reach the new day;
Or will you soon be gone?

Snuffed out and
Smothered in the throws,
Some nights are like your light,
Hour’s contemplation and time’s boon.
Stella Nova
Brightest star
Dead, though far.
Will you reach the new day;
Or will you soon be gone?

Ballad for the Mortal Man

By A.E. Bayne

Running rivulets shadows snake,
Venomous and vapid,
Across the grass that wants for wear;
I watch the lone man happen.

There wrests the man in ripe repose
Pondering my twin,
As birches drop their golden leaves,
He lets the slow thoughts swim.

He leans to right and sets his gaze
Down farthest reaches sought.
What plays upon his measured brow
Are mortal thoughts, so wrought.

I’ve witnessed men poised often here
A hundred times or more,
So anxious they to make their marks
On future’s hazy shore.

Running rivulets shadows snake,
Venomous and vapid,
Across the grass that wants for wear;
I watch the lone man happen.

Then leans he left to tread a step
His mind secure at last.
The day quite done with setting sun,
Decision time has passed.

(Response to "The Road Not Taken", by Robert Frost http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html)