FROM OUT OF MY WINDOW

I gazed outside at a bird on a limb,

So many clouds made my light very dim.

The things I see are not so new,

From out of my window, a simple view.

I stand here watching as time goes by,

I listen for the sound, I can hear nature cry.

The wind passes by, through the trees It blows,

Stare out at the night, watch as the moon glows.

As day becomes night and the night turns to day,

Time does not stand still but from out of my window

I see things my own way.

Keith Garrett

CURTAIN CALL

The last hurrah, the very last dance,

Say goodbye for the final time.

It’s time to turn out the lights,

Fade away, fade to black, not coming back.

The last words ever spoken, a final cry,

A last page in a book, the final chapter.

The hourglass is now empty,

Close the door and say goodnight.

This is your curtain call, the end of this life,

Till we meet again beyond the lit stars of the night.

Keith Garrett

FATHER AND SON

Walked hand in hand, he was the man,

When I looked up I saw my dad.

So impressed when I watched him shave,

I want to be like you, a proud dad of a man.

Watch television with you, a drive in your car,

Father and son, I have traveled far, see you above the stars.

Keith Garrett

FAR OFF LAND

There was a man in a far off land,

He had no eyes, he had no hands, this man.

Told me of visions, of a world he sees,

With his feet, he would pick up things.

He spoke of many stories and travels,

Lessons of worth from a man in a far off land.

There were no tears or anger of his losses,

A smile for gifts bestowed upon him.

He was not weak, body or mind,

He was a man from a far off land, a kind man.

He had no want of things so many,

What he valued was simple, not riches of plenty.

Keith Garrett

” DARKNESS”

Beauty exists within it, things we can not see,

It brings to me peace and solitude, I feel at ease.

The less I see brings me a calmness not felt by day,

Darkness can be such a scary place or peaceful.

There are those who must live with darkness,

Some are however in a darkened place.

Darkness is a friend to others and foe to another,

Darkness holds something for each in this world.

Keith Garrett

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