Richard D. Hartwell

Featured Contributor ~ Poetry

When hate is in the seeds, you can only harvest weeds. Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees In joined hands there is hope; in a clenched fist, none. Victor Hugo, Toilers of the Sea An eye for an eye only ends up making the world blind. Mohandas Gandhi, The Mahatma

Remembering the Old Ones

I read the resumé in his hands:
First meeting’s firm handshake,
Callused from outdoors’ hard labor,
Aromatic from cultivated fields,
Thumb scars from whittled figurines,
A wart from handling toads, or
Kissing frogs, searching for a princess.

Wrinkles, like ripples in a pond,
Spread outward from her smile,
Reaching distant shores of her
Far-flung family everywhere, and
Subdued laughter of wicked mirth,
Which drew him in as no other
Lure than nature had ever done.

The symmetry and sympathy of
Their worlds aligned in memory.