THE RHYMES OF LOVE [W, 9-8-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

I love sunflowers and hollyhocks

Raspberry jam and tick-tock clocks

Tiny chicks in bright yellow flocks

Ripened wheat all ready in shocks

 

I love little girls in bright summer frocks

Gray-haired grannies in old patterned smocks

Teen-aged lassies with red curly locks

Who blush when they hear the whistles of jocks

 

I love baseball players with red flashing socks

Friends who keep a key to my locks

Cats that sleep in big yellow crocks

Stores with root beer always in stock

 

I love chefs who make hot food in a wok

All the music composed by that Bach

Birds that sing from the trees and mock

The greedy seagulls that hock on the dock

 

I love cute puppies in a big brown box

Bagels with cream cheese and brined salmon lox

Chickens that outsmart a wily old fox

Alphabet letters on big wooden blocks

 

Beware the words

That come now and then

When an old man loves rhyming

And has a full fountain pen

 

John Robert McFarland

I have lived with words so long that I have my own built-in rhyming dictionary now, but I was a young man once, and I love Bruce Springsteen’s statement that “A young man with a guitar and a rhyming dictionary is dangerous.”