I’ve never considered myself a poet. I don’t know the first thing about poetry or writing it. But a few months back I picked up a pen and started writing. It was emotion, mainly. Just feelings I shaped into words and ended up being free verse poems. The results surprised me.

I still don’t write much poetry. It’s not something I can just sit down and do. I have to feel something, and then I might write about it and it might turn into something somewhat cool. But here is one of the first free verse poems I wrote while riding home on the train from Pittsburgh.

The Dawn

Sleep hovers over the countryside

Trees, silhouetted against paling sky

Dusk to deep blue

Blue to silver, then onto pink

Cloaked by clouds.

One car here, another there

Smoke belching against the sky

Trucks on a field and a train at the siding

A sleeping town

Beginning to stir.

Morning blushes to rose

Street lights dim

Clouds veil the final burst of glory

Streets and fields lighten

Pointed church spires and electric lines standing sentry.

Another night

Another dawn

Another page

Those who labored in the darkness retiring to rest

Others rise to greet the rising dawn.

Wraith-like fingers touch the morning with a misty brush

Islands rise up from blank seas

A haze clings to the hillside

Tinged with sweetness

A fresh breeze, rustling the trees.

A new hour to fill

A new day

A time to work, to live, to serve

A time to save

Or a time to destroy.

Comes to one, comes to all

This fresh dawn

For war or peace, for love or hate

The day a blank parchment, the pen in your hand

Now it is time to write.