*TUSEN TAKK

I drove silently toward sunset
my college friend at my side,
as I glanced at her lovely face
a radiant smile met my eyes.

My mind filled with idle thoughts
was quickly brought to attention
as her smile demolished the walls
shielding her from my love’s way.

Twilight’s magic created images
moving in and out of focus
as her lovely face shimmered
like a pointillist painting on display.

The light skipped about in her eyes
like an early evening firefly
sending messages of wonder
impatiently asking “What is to be?”

Her smile now a broom of happiness
swept debris from my old heartaches
as sensuous eyes became gentle hands
massaging away many years of heart’s pain.

With her radiant beauty in full bloom,
she easily illuminated the path
my heart would have happily followed
without constraints---only yesterday.

*Tusen Takk (Norwegian): Thank you very much/a thousand thanks.

 The Hayloft's Lament

My lids are open just enough
for the light to ooze through
seeking joyous activities
without drugs or booze.

My family stores the hay here
to feed animals living below
who are ready each Spring
to help make the crops grow.

Winter's white blustery fury
tears into the area from above
but there is nothing to fear
for I'm built by hands of love

Future farmers visit annually
just to see how work remains fun
when the earth's rotation
dampens the sizzling sun

Young boys and girls whose names I won't say
have used my parlor to pitch more than hay
and finding how exciting love can be
in a frantic and frightening but wonderful way.

Tomorrow this family farm
will be gone forever
sold to a Mega Corporation
with technology so clever.

There will be no love, laughter, or you
in their plans of “Win- No -Loss"
because the company's computer
is now the damn boss!

Samuel A. Hurst, Sr.

Watering Flowers

I always give her flowers.
She loves flowers.
Flowers love her.

Their colors are brighter
and their stems are stronger
when encircled
by her lovely tapered fingers.
Fingers filled with fire
that can warm the body
like the summer’s sun.

We stand silently at the river’s edge.
Our bodies touching, pleading.
She throws the flowers
into the swirling water
for she can’t take them home.

DIGNITY

"I don't want to die without shoes on!"

He shouted at me
tears streaming down his face.

"My father died in the fields man!
He had no goddamned shoes on.
I can still see his feet
all cracked, dried, and split open.
The damned overseer walked past like he was shit.
Without shoes there ain't no dignity, man!"

The pungent smoke burned my eyes
as I ran about like a maniac.
"Alright, alright --- God almighty, I'm looking!"
I shouted, but the sound was only a whisper.

I looked, I looked, Lord did I look!
It wasn't long, but seemed an eternity,
before I found them.

Oddly, they had landed close together
when blown off
by that damned land mine.

I took off my shoes
and put them on his
mangled and severed feet.

We held each other, crying,
until he died --- with dignity!

The regal tulip grows majestically tall,
as it stretches to kiss the sunray’s warmth.
Its green lithe body filled with energizing chlorophyll,
stands alone like a former lover refusing love.

Snuggly enclosed in a coat of crimson,
feet deep in the foundation of soft soil,
with a stately bearing that calls to mind
its history, romance and vulnerability.

Whether it is the image of Candela, the yellow Emperor
or the victorious Triumph that flowers in mid-spring,
its petals sparkle like gold in direct sunlight.
Is this beautiful image the realities of tulip life?

Can its lineage be traced to the once cherished Viceroy
or the precious Semper Augustus with blood-red flares,
possessing bulbs worth more than their weight in gold
until the tragic “Dutch Tulip Bubble burst of 1636?”

The image cannot fully capture the odd, but historical truth,
of how so many Holland citizens were planted in bankruptcy,
triggered by their desire to own the Viceroy and Augustus,
whose bulbs were frantically sought by rich and nobility alike.

Back in those days, a single Viceroy bulb sold for
“Eight fat swine, twelve fat sheep
63 gallons of wine, 60 kegs of beer
30 kegs of butter, 1000 lbs. of cheese
A silver drinking cup”
While an Augustus brought even more in the market place.

Tulips seem to know that man’s pleasures can bring death and extinction
and simply “tiptoeing through the tulips” cannot save their babies lives.
Look there, where petals first appear, truth is signaled by a bronze symbol
in the shape of an inverted heart spilling eternal love only unto itself.

Neither the greedy nor growers knew their favorite colors were virus’s footprints
stalking and killing future bulbs as it patiently moved from generation to generation
until the bulb’s final stage evolves into the nothingness of a powdery black death.

Samuel A. Hurst, Sr.
Inspired by Eugene Hammiel’s drawing “Tall Tulip on Red Background”