Peter Witt is a retired university professor who took up writing poetry in his senior years.  His work has appeared on several online platforms and in a published volume (Poems in the Breeze, Lulu.com). Peter also researches and writes family history (Edith’s War: Writings of a Red Cross Worker and Lifelong Champion of Social Justice, Texas A&M University Press). 

Morning Prayer in Minor Key

Wisps of sun paint tree tops,
brush pastel shades of yellows and orange
on silent parade of passing clouds,
as backyard mockingbird sings
a stolen song that begs my love to rise,
pry open her eyes, greet the ascending
warmth of a still, sleepy day.

And yet, I fear the dawn,
for too soon she will be gone,
leaving me drowning in my sorrows,
bereft for all my dark tomorrows,
never again to see her grace
the soft of smile alight her face,
her sweet voice growing ever cold to me,
her future fading to mystery.

Oh sun, please delay her rise,
close for now my lover's eyes,
hold her in my silent gaze,
cheeks ablaze in gentle rays,
pray with me for just a while
that when she wakes
I'll feel her smile.

Kites have the best view

Floating with the currents
dragon kite,
red, white, and blue,
sees the countryside
sighs with disappointment,
at the polluted rivers
with their cast of putrid green,

  the wounded, strip-mined land,
  super shovels digging a path
  for the oil pipeline through
  hundred year old forests,

      farms dating to pre-civil war times
      that feel the wrath of fracking wells,
      the pipelines carrying polluted treasure
      to the gulf coast of Texas
      where huge refineries
      release toxic chemicals,
      into the air we breathe.

Kite sees it all, yet is helpless,
like the young boy,
to slow down a future
bereft with calamitous rains,
roiling winds,
boiling temperatures.

Kite and boy are innocents
caught in a world of greed,

more interested in wealth
than planetary survival.

Soon boy is called to dinner,
kite reeled in and stored
in shed beside the garage
bereaved by what it's seen
and what it knows
is a certain future.

Forever I will be Bereaved

Pine for you in sorrow,
your last breath a chill on my cheek
damp from tears shed in your moment
of final passing.

Tonight sheets feel cold,
heart aches, head feels heavy,
arms yearn for your touch,
eyes refuse to close.

Our paths were entwined from that first coffee date,
then wonder of children, the warm fires
of our empty nest, which ended too soon
as you sunk further into pallid disarray.

Now you are but a memory
that inhabits the walls of rooms,
the pain of your passing
a welcome echo in each
movement I make.

Forever I will be happily bereaved.