a very early poem

Two years ago, I went to Blue Springs, Missouri for my mother's funeral. While there, I rummaged through the old, large cedar chest, filled with mementos. All kinds of old family stuff. I brought several boxes of that stuff back home with me to Arkansas. Only recently have I felt like going through it. This morning, I found a poem I had written, probably from when I was in the seventh or eighth grade.


The Sky

The sky is a strange thing
     When observed from below.
It seems so tranquil in the daytime
     Its largeness makes it bold.
And I cannot describe
     What the sky means to me;
Its downy clouds and blueish shades
     All seem to be
A picture or a scene for us
     To look upon amazed,
And ease us from all toil and fuss
     Throughout our own cloudy days.

O sky, so high and so vast;
     Tell me of thy ageless past.
Only you know what has been before this time,
     And only you will remain,
Till the last church bells chime.
     I endeavor only to ask you
One favor and that's all;
     That you will cause your warm breezes and blue skies
To shine on my grave,
     When I shall die!


Reading that denouement, I had to smile. The poem is a pleasant rhyming meditation on the sky. But then (cue the Fate motif from Beethoven's 5th), a poem must conclude with...the GRAVE!