Christmas Colors by Dennis Lange

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(sent in Christmas cards 2015)
—
The colors red and green, those two,
Are Christmas colors, yuletide’s cue,
As though its season after fall
Invites us to another ball.

Green is the holly; green the tree,
And green some stockings that we see.
Green is the mistletoe we hang;
From which some Christmas kissing sprang.

Red are the balls upon the tree;
Red are some stockings filled with glee.
Red’s Santa in his jolly suit,
Until he slides down chimney’s chute.

When put together, red and green,
Have one important thing they mean:
A treasure stored up in the heart
That one adds to, but will not part.

We often dream of one more hue
A blanket thicker than the dew –
A coat of snow that covers all,
A Christmas white that will enthrall.

But topped or not with whipping cream,
Our faces fill with Christmas gleam.
It leaves for us a colored print
Of just how much the season meant.

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photo by Michael Pohl at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mILkay4/Christmas+Bubbles

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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Snow by Dennis Lange

A kitchen with a cook that’s wild
…Has flour everywhere.
A layer, white, on counter lays,
…And on his hands and hair. 

And when we would describe the scene
…To let another know
We’d say that all was covered white –
…‘Twas blanketed with snow. 

One starts a fire with solid wood,
…And things that cannot fly
Since they are solid mass, and weight
…Is what they’re anchored by. 

But let the flames lick hungrily,
…And heat will upward flow.
Then flake-like ashes from the fire
…Fall from the sky like…snow. 

In blizzards, flakes like ashes fall;
…The trees are white-capped waves.
The ground becomes the ocean’s foam
…Thick like a face man shaves. 

Then all the world is blanketed
…And all shapes, rounded, grow.
And we are then without a word,
…For what’s like snow is – snow!

—

 

© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

 

 

 

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Football In Denver by Dennis Lange

To play the game in freezing temp
…And ever falling snow,
The player nor the fan is wimp.
…At home we think them schmo.

But there’s one thing that’s even worse
…Than frostbite with your bruise –
That’s overtime, an extra curse,
…And pain then when you lose.

—
————————————

The temperature was 24 degrees and snow fell throughout
the game.  The agony of the weather didn’t end in regulation,
though because New England tied the game with a field goal
as time ran out.  The misery continued in overtime but the
Broncos won on their first drive with a long run, ending the
Patriots’ undefeated season.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

 

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Two Fence Haiku by Dennis Lange

Social Climber

A good fence
Even solid, tall –
No problem.

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Bending Shadow

Sun and snow
Working together
Melt the fence.

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Climber – photo by Laura Shreck at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dRq2uN/Hidy+Ho%2C+Neighbor%21+1

Shadow – photo by Brainloc at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mfXjgL8/Shadows+2

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

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How Clear Is The Water! by Dennis Lange

How clear is the water that’s speeding along!
How sweet is its rushing! How sweet is its song! –
The slope of the mountain supplying the pace,
Soprano and tenor and touches of bass.

How cold is the water that comes down the hill,
That runs from the snow and keeps some of its chill!
It runs o’er the rocks and is filtered and clean,
Like nature less man’s touch, so pure and pristine. 

How blessed are the people who live on the way
The stream takes in running to ocean or bay!
They sit at the table where it cuts – a knife –
And drink freely from its swift waters of life.

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photo by Andreas Krappweis at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/nVIvZnG/Mountain+Creek+and+setting+Sun

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

 

 

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The San Francisco Hills by Dennis Lange

The San Francisco hills are, day by day,
A mystery that never goes away.
Some need a revelation so they’ll know
Why they put on the purest iv’ry show.

They daily seem to smoke as if on fire,
And wear their white robes like a virgin choir.
But on their slopes there is no leaping flame
That Smoking Mountains would become their name.

Though Twain deemed San Francisco summer’s cold
No one who knows would be so wrong and bold
To say the hills, upon their heads, wear snow
So they are white and wise like old men grow.

It really is too complex to explain
The factors here in my too short refrain.
So, in the end, my simple answer’s that
On San Francisco hills sits Sandburg’s cat.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

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Mark Twain supposedly said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

Fog by Carl Sandburg:
https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/fog-by-carl-sandburg/

If Sandburg’s Cat Were Mine:
https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/if-sandburgs-cat-were-mine-by-dennis-lange/

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The Runaway by Robert Frost

…………………….The Runaway

Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, “Whose colt?”
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast.  He dipped his head
And snorted at us.  And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.
“I think the little fellow’s afraid of the snow.
He isn’t winter-broken.  It isn’t play
With the little fellow at all.  He’s running away.
I doubt if even his mother could tell him, ‘Sakes,
It’s only weather.’  He’d think she didn’t know!
Where is his mother?  He can’t be out alone.”
And now he comes again with clatter of stone,
And mounts the wall again with whited eyes
And all his tail that isn’t hair up straight.
He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
“Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
When other creatures have gone to stall and bin,
Ought to be told to come and take him in.”

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‘Tis The Season by Dennis Lange

‘Tis The Season
(Christmas 2013) 

Christmas tree,
Package bright
Star atop,
Silent night. 

Snow may fall
Bells will ring
Mistletoe,
Children sing. 

Making candy,
Shoot the breeze;
Building bonds,
Memories.

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*I sent this poem in Christmas cards I mailed in 2013.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2014.

 

 

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Hyla Brook by Robert Frost

…………………….Hyla Brook

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh bells in a ghost of snow) –
Or flourished and come up in jewelweed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent,
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat –
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.

 

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Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

 

Winter Jam

Lights turn snow
To another world –
Marmalade.

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Perry Como

Put it in
(The caught fallen star)
Your gullet.

 

Perry Como sings “Catch A Falling Star”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdK1wvKAFfg

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Pressure Against Evolution

In bending,
Hydraulics alone
Pound Darwin.

Giraffes – see first subheading:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=2629

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Winter Jam – photo by Colin Brough at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mSFOBUs/Winter+street+at+night

Perry Como – photo by Colin Brough at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mkylj12/Unfortunate+starfish%21

Pressure – photo by Ron Jeffries at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mgPFo0k/giraffe

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

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