To a Bluebonnet
Harbinger of spring
Fashion plate with delicate
Blue and White flowers with green leaves.
Ringing out that winter is gone with its
Cruel blast of Arctic wind that rules
The Temperate Zone with numbing freeze.
Delicate flower of the Texas Plain
Growth uninterrupted through the fall and winter rain
Covered in snow but growing on
Until the warm spring days bring forth
Delicate blue and white flowers,
That burst forth in springtime songs
To tell of all the things that are to be...
And of all the things that have been.
Roots nourishing on the decayed bones of buffalo,
Growing in land that was trodden on by hooves of Indian Ponies.
Limestone rock laid under ancient seas.
Flowers of prehistoric times
Surviving through drought, flood, fire...
Plants growing from seed lying in the ground.
Unable to grow until a time determined by nature's law,
Bringing it forth to spring out of the soil.
Delicate flower of thee I sing
Praises on your beautiful frame
That shows forth the work of God.
You who can survive the stress of time
And bloom with brilliance every spring.
Send hope that the human race will also
Survive Atomic bombs, pestilence and flood
To do the work of the Divine
Who was resurrected at Eastertime.
By Luther Butler
I TOOK THE OTHER ROAD
I took the other road; the one you did not take.
It was not any better; it was not any worse.
But like you, I wondered what the other road was like,
The one I did not take.
Perhaps if you were here you could tell me because you took the other road.
The one I did not take.
By Luther Butler
20th CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
We are the pessimists of the earth,
The grippers and the cynics.
We see the black and never the light.
We are a lost generation
Born in a depression, raised in a war.
Our eyes are green with lust.
We want all we can get while the getting is good.
Our golden rule, "Do unto others before they do unto you
~
If you are wise you will give us what we want.
We want everything, and we give nothing.
Violence and hate is our creed,
And we gain what we want by might.
By Luther Butler
SAILOR'S PRAYER BEFORE THE STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
To the God who made this man great,
Give me the attributes he had:
Give me a pure heart, a clear mind,
Honesty, Courage and Character.
Not that I may have praise of Public,
Nor serve in the same capacity he did.
But, in whatever place in life I fill,
I may do my task in the manner he has done -
Without fear of reproach of others
So if someday some person should think of me,
As I am now thinking of Lincoln,
That person can make this same prayer to You.
By Luther Butler
TEXAS TORNADO
OR I SHALL NOT BE AFRAID
Sirens wail,
Our television blares.
A tornado in on the ground
Plus two or three or more are in the air.
"Take cover immediately."
"God, I will repent.
Just show me a safe place to hide.
I will not climb a wall in the hall,
Nor be buried under a bathroom tile."
No, this time I shall be a man.
With my chest bared to the wind,
I will spit in the devil's eye.
Even as I rise to meet my Maker unafraid
Wind shall sweep through my hair.
Like Elijah, I shall be taken up into the sky.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" my wife asks.
"In a moment."
"Look, the tornado missed us an hour ago,
Why can't you come to bed?"
""I am stuck under it, that is why."
"I shall not be afraid, only terrified."
By Luther Butler
AN ASTRONONAUNT'S VIEW OF THE EARTH
Flying over the earth so round,
Seeing Africa go by in daylight,
Picking up South America.
Asia's over there a ways.
China's mountains keeps India isolated.
Here's Central America.
There's New York on your right.
Chicago's on your left,
Nome'll be under you soon.
London, we shan't see tonight,
She's all fogged in
As is Boston on our next rotation.
Isn't it a sight!
Seeing the lights,
From up here all is right.
Really though, Iran's fighting Iraq I see.
Russia's after Afghanistan or is it Pakistan?
Soon Syria'll fight Israel if Egypt doesn't.
Central America's a mess down there,
With Contras fighting Sandinistas,
And Russia wanting to get in the middle of it all.
Why doesn't everyone get a rocket?
And go in orbit.
And let the world rest,
Cause it won't fight with everyone off it.
Or, will it?
By Luther Butler
ANDERSONVILLE
The leaves fall down at Andersonville.
For over a hundred years they have moldered
Over graves where men lived and died
Of plague, starvation, and bloody flux.
Under the accumulations of seasons,
Footprints are hidden by moldering debris
Which cannot mask all odors of those who
Struggled to live and died surrounded by walls
That cannot obliterate the smells of Andersonville.
Confederates in gray upon the walls,
Yankees in tattered blue below them
Fighting not for their country's honor
But for the right to molder and decay and
Die at Andersonville.
Honeysuckle grows over those hallowed grounds
As woodbine creeps among the fallen leaves
Where birds flit among the ruins
And vie with squirrels for
Nuts and seed grown on grass
Which fed on those in blue
Who gave their lives at Andersonville.
((In memory of those Union soldiers who died in the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.)
By Luther Butler
ANTLERS
Deer antlers on display in my driveway,
Six points signifying six years,
The bearer of this proud outgrowth
Dwelt on this earth.
Proud beast of the Texas woodland
Siring a herd of does making him
Father of a herd of fawns each year in his image
Running through the post oak and the mesquite,
Friend of the jay and the squirrel.
Proud beast shot down in the prime of life
By a poacher hunting out of season.
Left to lie in a hidden ravine and rot
By one who shot for sport.
A coward who didn't dare recover your carcass
That wasn't torn by buzzard, fox, or lesser beast
Feasting on your body to perpetuate life in the forest glen.
A waste was your life's end
For God made life to give life, and not to end
Lying in desolate weeds of a ravine
Hidden from the eyes of other men.
God made your life to carry on life in times of famine.
One man hidden along a country road
Brought your life to a wasted end.
Unkept, unused for food or warmth
Your body lay there on the cruel ground,
A thing of beauty marred by death.
I found you lying there
Shot before hunting season started
By two days, your hunter afraid to look
And find your carcass for meat
For his family and friends.
I grieve for you who was shot down in life's prime,
A little past being an old buck with strong ardor beating.
Still able to sire a strong fawn during the
The late summer heat and early fall's frost.
Still of use to God and man on the universe.
Still waiting for the long winter's cold blast.
Still able to leap the fences and graze the grass
That sustained your life under the skies.
Full six years past and more to come
Cut down by the blast of a rifle
Triggered by a thoughtless hunter on a county road.
A man wanting that which was not his for two day's more.
He not giving you a chance to be hunted legally
In the fall season of the time
Paced by laws of man when you could be killed
For food to carry a family through the winter.
How often are we cut down in life
Before the time appointed us to be killed
By those who unmercifully want our part.
That we have built up by ambition and work
So that they can tear it down, and
For a brief time live on what we have done?
By Luther Butler
CLIMB A MOUNTAIN
In my youth
I wanted to climb mountains.
From crag to crag, I intended to go.
Sometime I knew I would find one
Where no one else had ever been.
Instead of climbing mountains
There was Korea.
After which children in a slum demanded my love.
At last after years of waiting, I had a son.
Then my home was in the flatlands
Helping men grow grain.
Now the other world is through with me,
But I can't climb mountains anymore.
You can keep your pearly gates
With streets of glittering gold.
For eternity let me climb mountains
So I can find the tallest one.
By Luther Butler
A GRAMMARIAN'S PROPOSITION
Let me put my dangling participle into your tightly close
quotation marks,
And expand them to encircling brackets until I reach your
exclamation mark with my probing question mark.
Perhaps you will see asterisks while I try to turn negative
sentences into positive ones.
Periods of rest may be followed by another dash to find where
your apostrophe is hidden among a maze of run-on sentences and dependent clauses separated by a dainty comma.
How good it will feel if my throbbing exclamation mark explodes into
a myriad number of dots and dashes.
After this, I'll explore your misplaced commas with something
softer;
A gentle, wet exploring in your dot may do.
The complexity of this task is caused by both of us being in
the confinement of tightly constructed sentences that will not give or
take loosely constructed phrases or clauses
But, who knows? The best of us split infinitives occasionally.
By Luther Butler
ETERNAL HILLS
"I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help."
Purple are they in the moonlight;
Grey are they in the morning's first light.
Dappled are they at noon with trees and dales,
But in the evening as the sun goes down,
Then I love them most.
Sometimes their purple tops in the setting sun
Glow with a crimson red
Like the blood that flowed from Calvary.
Sometimes they are pink on top with white sides
Like a lady decked in pink and white.
Moonlight, noon light, twilight
Winter, spring, summer, fall;
The hills are ever changing,
Yet eternally the same.
They are my home.
By Luther Butler
THE VOID
Dark skies, dim stars,
The world is adrift in darkness.
No light, no sight, nothing but blackness.
Sighs here, cries there, something is travailing.
Man dies, powder burns, fuse sputters shorter,
What is happening in this world today?
Nothing! No one knows! I don't. Do you?
Hope is all gone, faith is smothered by fears,
Waster here, nothing there, sadness is everywhere;
Sight is gone, hate rules all.
Why fight for what is right? What is right?
No one knows. Light is gone and evil rules.
Men lovers of self, ignore their God.
Are we doomed? Is there no hope?
Something new is stirring in the moor,
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
By Luther Butler
FALL
It is a beauteous time of the year.
The fall rains have passed.
Nature rests from the plenteous heat;
There is a stillness in the air
That echoes in the greeness of the grass.
The last rose blooms amidst the flower,
And it sheds a shadow on the pavement.
There are thoughts in the season.
The leaves turn gold and yellow
Fluttering to the ground upon gentle wings.
The birds flit in the autumn sunlight,
As thoughts upon the summer fade away.
Soon the cold days of winter will be here
But the memory of this one day will sustain me
As do my thoughts of you.
(Dedicated to my Wife and Son.)
By Luther Butler
FOUR-MILE-CUT
Last time I was down here fishing at Matagorda Peninsula
Four Mile Cut wasn't here.
Something about the oil people getting mad,
And turning the water loose.
Four-Mile Cut, you ruined my fishing trip.
I intended to go up to the shell bank.
I wonder if the oil people know, or care?
By Luther Butler
(Matagorda Peninsula is on the Texas Coast west of Houston. It's some good place.)
FRUSTRATED?
Is acid eating your stomach lining?
How about your blood pressure?
Is your mind in turmoil about having to waste
Your life while waiting for others?
Remember, while on a train
Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on an envelope.
His speech still shakes a nation.
Instead of fretting and
Killing yourself from frustration,
Write a poem,
And live longer.
By Luther Butler
GOOD FRIDAY
The officials who knocked on his door, said,
"You've cleaned up the town by,
making the camel dealers be truthful,
and by making the money changers be honest.
You've healed the sick and raised the dead."
"And?" he asked.
"We're taking you to your temple to make you king."
"I don't see any chariot pulled by white horses."
Suspicion was in his voice.
"We are going to do it according to the scriptures.
You are to ride on one of great David's royal asses."
"The crowd with palm branches?"
"They'll make the path green with the royal plant."
"Let me get my coat and hat."
"No need," they said. "We have a purple robe."
"The gold crown is mine?" he asked in awe.
"It is yours.
Wear it proudly when you sit on your golden throne."
The multitude cheered him on his way.
Too late he found the crown was thorns.
His purple robe was split. The armored multitude carried swords and spears,
And the golden throne was a cruel cross
Built by the camel dealers and the moneychangers.
"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"
By Luther Butler
HER AUNT'S FUNERAL
We went back after they finished shoveling dirt into her grave.
Heat made the grama grass dry and twisted.
Since a hot Texas sun sucked June moisture, there was no green left.
Cicadas worked at a loud and noisy song that screamed for water,
And the beaming light twisted and turned into optical illusion
That made mad men see sticks turn into rattlesnakes.
"You still want to be buried here by your parents?"
"If you don't mind," she answered.
"We better buy our plots this time."
"You plan on dying?"
I answered, "At our age one never knows."
"You want a double tombstone?" she asked.
After I agreed, I thought about the Texas heat.
Hell, I wouldn't hurt her for anything, but if she dies first,
They can put my name on the tombstone,
But I may have my corpse shipped to Colorado,
If the ground isn't frozen too hard to dig.
By Luther Butler
IN MEMORY
From under a cold, gray winter sky
We feel the chagrin in losing our own,
And nothing comes but, "Why?"
Why must he rest under a cold, frozen ground?
We loved him so when we remember his boyish grin,
And we still remember the guilt of anger we knew
When some of his ways were against our ways,
For he was an individual, we know,
Made by God for a reason.
I cannot give you an answer,
Only that you might find the strength of the live oak,
But when early spring brightens the sky,
Perhaps when blue bonnets bloom
Among the other myriad blossoms,
A yellow butterfly shall dip,
And a gentle wind blowing the grass
Shall whisper the answer,
And you will know God's reason.
I really hope so, I really do.
(February 12, 1994)
By Luther Butler
LATE BLOOMING EASTER LILY
The creamy-white Easter lily blooms by the bird fountain.
Its loveliness adds a spring beauty to the backyard flower garden.
A redbird sits on the fountain and drinks water.
Soon it will fly back to its grown fledglings.
They are ready to leave the nest.
A squirrel brings her almost grown young to eat sunflower seed.
Hulls fall on the fragile, lovely Easter lily,
Blooming on the first day of June.
By Luther Butler
MARCHING IN MARYLAND
Navy men in Maryland marching
Through the snow we marched.
Men to the left and men to the right,
Men to the front and men to the rear.
We marched in tight formation with our rifles
Pointed toward the sky.
There were clouds above us,
Those we would not shoot.
We were dressed in blue and white
Though the white was only on our heads.
Our rifle barrels were plugged.
The enemy was in Korea.
A flock of seagulls circled and swooped above us,
Mother Machree's chickens,
God's noblest birds,
We passed the reviewing stand together.
We were the ex-hospital company who had survived the flu.
The seagulls fell in behind us
In perfect formation they marched two by two
Picking up the snot.
By Luther Butler
MY VIEW OF THE IRAN-CONTRA HEARINGS JULY 1987
Thirty or more fat toads sat glaring
Their eyes were steely mean as they sought to destroy a warrior.
Some had hair; some had none; and some had half and half,
My God it's true, it was a sight I saw.
Some had been warriors when it was popular to be warriors,
Now it was popular to be peaceful, fat toads who made no waves.
"You lied," they said in deep baritones, tenors and very little bass. "You lied in protecting our lily pond."
"It's true," the Warrior said. "I lied to save lives other than my own."