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A graduate of Southern Illinois University, more than 450 of my poems have been published in various journals and periodicals.

I've been twice nominated for Pushcart Prize honors.

I believe poetry is meant to be shared, and I'm glad I can share some of mine with you.



My poems have appeared in (among others): The American Scholar, ByLine, Capper's, The Christian Science Monitor, Frogpond, Kaleidoscope, The Listening Eye, Midwest Poetry Review, Modern Haiku, Nanny Fanny Poetry, A New Song, Palo Alto Review, Pebble Lake Review, Plainsongs, Potpourri, St. Anthony Messenger, Vincent Brothers Review, and Waterways.

-RLB-

Fireflies

Slowly, randomly they rise
from daytime resting places
into the cool, embracing night.

Tiny wings whirring against
the sodden, clinging atmosphere,
they labor to lug their lights

blinking up wavering ladders,
beacons signaling that dreams
still take wing on such a night.
© 1997

(originally published in Sisters Today)

-RLB-


Stolen Minutes

I steal minutes
when I can, take
them for my own use,
sometimes to sit
thinking my own
odd-angled thoughts,
sometimes watching
as a pencil searches
its way across
the untracked page,
sometimes listening
to that voice,
imperceptible
except to that part
of the ear
that feels,
more than it hears,
what is said.
© 1996
(originally published in The Christian Science Monitor)

-RLB-

Reverie

My tired brain,
sponge that it is,
busies itself
sopping up sights
and sounds, giving
nothing back
as we drift apart,
like two skaters
arcing slowly away
on a vast blue rink,
curling, curling
back, linking hands
again, a flurry of
upbladed ice
marking our sudden
juncture, skates
flashing in unison
again as though
we'd never parted.
© 2000
(originally published in A New Song)

-RLB-

Hollyhocks

We went to the bluffs,
up the narrow path
along the spine of the ridge,
up where the tall oaks
clustered among the rocks,
where the soil was dark
and crumbly, cool to our
digging fingers, and piled
that loose, rich soil
into a coal bucket,

lugged it back in many
trips to a dedicated circle
of depleted yellow clay
behind the house,
heaping this found food
there for furry-jacketed
seed from a deep pocket
of Grandma's apron,

and they became the most
sun-catching, bee-luring,
beautiful flowers
I had ever seen, almost
as though God had just
said: Let there be
hollyhocks.

And there were.

© 1999

RLB

ACCEPTING CHANGE

I'm not always
a willing partner,
but I must go
with the times,
leaving a trail
of scuff marks
where I've been
dragged along.
(c) 1998
(originally published in Capper's)

-RLB-

AS A CHILD

I wanted to be
a sailor standing
on a slanting deck,
rigging straining,
sails billowing, wind
whipping my hair
like seaweed,
waters lifting me
toward God.

But it was not
to be: no massive
sails, no salt-soaked
rigging straining
and creaking, no
whistling winds,
just a sea of words
lifting me,
cradling me.
(c) 2000
(originally published in Capper's)

-RLB-