BENEATH AN APPLE TREE

Fall has come to visit once again, watch the leaves float down,

The air changes here in this place, this place of change over years.

One thing that stands still here among change is an older apple tree,

What stories it would tell if only it could speak the words of man.

Beneath this old apple tree rests in a grave a man who once lived,

Let’s say his name was Ben, who was he, so many years before he was,

Ben was a family man with a wife and children on a small farm.

A good life as he along with his family did age just as the apple tree did,

Ben one day went away, the apple tree stayed, it has aged until this day.

Beneath an apple tree lies the body, the remains of a man, a memory,

Watched over and time spent, always, a man and a tree together they be.

Keith Garrett

ANOTHER TIME AND PLACE

I write to you from yesterday, a very long time ago for you,

Long before you were born in a town of people and family.

My family and I were up before the break of dawn, working,

Children of a simple time but at times not so simple you see.

Horses were a common thing just as your car is in your time,

Things of your day not dreamed up as of yet, life was hard, also fun.

Here in yesterday, there is sickness that kills many as there is no medicine,

As I sit here on my farm watching my wife and kids play I write this to you.

When you receive my letter it will be that I and those I love will be gone now,

You will have all the things that we here have never seen, good and bad.

There are beautiful things and land that will disappear with time, I can see them,

I live here in another time and place just as you do, I hope this letter gets to you.

Keith Garrett

FROM 18 UNTIL THIS DAY

Much younger was I back when the sun rose much higher in the sky,

Still but a teenager as once a thought that I might have been a man.

When I was eighteen I was going to the beach, dreaming about life ahead,

Long blonde hair and searching for that always wanted Summer tan.

The sun begins to move west and I go beyond those teen years,

I follow the sun, it looks down upon me each morning then I chase it.

I walk the road, I live my life, the sun travels further than I can run,

The more I follow then the older I seem, I have dreamed, no more eighteen.

I am older than some friends once were, older than a father gone far away,

From 18 until this day I have changed in different ways, the sun now halfway.

Keith Garrett

BORN, DIE, FORGOTTEN

It is an amazing thing to be born, a gift of life,

Mind and heart together tell a life’s tale.

Created we are by another two we learn to love,

We grow to be men and women, childhood a memory.

As we age, sickness, injury, maybe an accident will take us,

Guaranteed, something will end our time in this crazy place.

What bothers me is that eventually we will be forgotten,

There will at some moment be no one who thinks of or remembers me.

Keith Garrett

BILLY MITCHELL

Today in my mind but yesterday was a long time ago,

I think of you, a place and a school, I was a little boy.

It was nineteen sixty-seven, Kindergarten and you,

The first day of school is recalled in my mind, a boy I saw cry,

His name Was Cotero, I think of those clowns on a wall.

Are they still there? I wonder, swingsets and young friends,

A boy named Grover, Duck, Duck, goose, Graham crackers and milk.

Naptime, I remember the cabinets with cartoonish pictures,

Reading time was the best, Foldout books, three-dimensional stories,

Hansel and Gretel, all the best, I was there until nineteen seventy.

Hard to remember the teachers’ names, Mrs. Scott back in second grade,

I think it was Mr. Kelly, Principal with dark hair and glasses,

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt was a song in the Cafeteria.

After school and on the weekends you could play games,

Carroms, maze, and more, Billy Mitchell, when once I was a child.

Friends, Jeff, James, Jimmy, and Alan, wherever they are, I remember,

There was a bell back then known as the freeze bell, stand very still.

We all have our childhood, our memories, a town to call home, then we roam,

Billy Mitchell, I find myself wandering back to you, memories of a school.

Keith Garrett

A CLEAR SPRING NIGHT

I await you as the sun goes down, a breeze blowing cool,

There will be a full moon rising in the sky tonight.

Jasmine is a fragrance noticed in the nights of spring,

Sweet is its smell as darkness awakes and the daylight sleeps.

The cold bite of Winter becomes a memory for now,

Summers heat has not yet been born, this feeling of spring.

Walk with me hand, in hand under a full moon so bright,

A clear, Spring night is alright, with a woman of beauty I walk.

A dreaming man tells a story of a walk with a beautiful woman,

Under a full moon on a clear, Spring night, he waits.

Keith Garrett

LISTEN TO THE DRUMBEAT

Thump, thump, hear the sound that makes the world go around,

Feel the pounding of its rhythm, the drum beats hard, the heart beats fast.

Listen to the drumbeat that lives inside, listen to music, the drumbeat cries,

Boom, boom, echoes through the sky, thunder is the drum, it beats out loud.

Wait for the rumbling as the shaking earth trembles with an awesome fear,

Bang, bang, listen as the sleeping child’s heart comes to life in the dark of night.

Bombs and gunfire sing through the war beaten land, thump, thump,

The drum beats slow, the drum beats fast, a mother’s terror as her son dies.

The dancing boxer, hard hit as he is dropped to the floor, beat of his heart,

Thump, thump, boom, boom, goes his heart like the drumbeat so slow.

Listen to the drumbeat, to the sound of wandering feet, like a drum,

A first breath of life, a slower, and slower beat of the fading, going away.

Keith Garrett

I JUST WANTED TO CALL

You have moved on, I see your number has changed,

Your phone only rings as never again will you answer.

I just wanted to call and see how you are doing since you left,

Do you like it there, are there hills and valleys?

What memories do you hold of your time here on Earth,

Do you think of us just as we think of you, what do you do?

I just wanted to call to let you know that I love you always,

I’ll try again on another day, I hope you get my message.

Love you, Mom
Keith

TO SIT IN THE SAND

By myself with the wind in my face,

Watching out towards the horizon, I sit in the sand.

Above, only sky that has not an ending to my eyes,

Birds that fly, drift silently on by.

The waves are a sight, crashing on the beach,

Who would be the man who sat here once and dared to dream?

To sit in the sand, warm to the touch of my feet,

Thoughts fill my wandering mind, what things do all of this teach.

To sit in the sand, peaceful is where I am,

Memory’s of times, all that i did in life,

Felt from inside.

Keith Garrett

TO SAVE HIS DAUGHTER

Already did he sacrifice his life for his country and family,

Doing what it took, in harm’s way each day to make things safe.

He has survived many dangerous fights in nights of fright,

He was now home, wanted some peace and too know his child,

When they took his daughter, they would know no peace.

A military man, a promise to get her back, to save his daughter,

This was his job, now a personal fight for a loved one’s life.

To save his daughter this man would risk it all, he would not fail,

Not about honor but for his love of a daughter.

Keith Garrett