Five Quatrains

                        1.

Rising early, I step outside

to bid fair winds to Orion

leaving soon the winter sky,

a journey we all must take.

                        2.

Spring snow is short-lived,

a cloud blown white and stark

against the blue sky on the horizon

where we long to fly into summer.

                        3.

Late at night my old transistor

picks up the static of a distant station

and I faintly hear a love song playing

from the past where we used to live.

                        4.

Across the lake, frozen still and cold,

smoke whispers from a far-off chimney,

a signal sent, “we are here and well,”

and our lives go on, mindful of our neighbors.

                        5.

An odyssey’s journey ends

when we come home again,

changed, but really, just the same

as when we left, only different.