The Light Within
selected poetry of
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Snapshot
Where floats our life
when we look out to sea?
What turns the tide, and how?
We ebb and flow as memory
escaping from the now.
A swimmer in a pinafore,
a wink, a blink in time.
A snapshot on a static shore,
a frozen pantomime.
Two Surprises
I can’t remember when the snow began.
It may have been the other morning when
My cat took sick, about twelve days ago.
I glanced outside and thought, “It’s gonna snow”.
It started slowly. Clouds began to
gather.
(I’m speaking of my cat and not the weather)
Her humor changed. I notice all her
fears.
She’s been with me for almost thirteen years.
Then it grew heavy. I was worried that
(I’m speaking of the weather, not my cat)
I couldn’t make it to her vet in time.
The snow was deep. The roads were
closed, and I’m
Not one to cope with changes so intense.
Ameilda died, and in her last defense
I’d have to say she lived and passed on sweetly,
Like me in snow, alone, but not completely.
I know they’re always forming in the skies,
But death and snowstorms take me by surprise.
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Book Details
About the Book
The Light Within is an easy to read book of poems
written over a span of fifty years. The poems are now collected in this volume
at the request of family and friends who have in many cases been the recipients
of them originally and who have encouraged this publication. Hopefully the
poems will speak to the reader as clearly as they have spoken to the poet. They
are a reflection of the common events of life such as love, birth, heartbreak,
nature, small towns, vacations, death, computers, vacations, and fantasies.
Most are lyrical and rhyming, a few are blank verse, but none is high brow or
academic. Reminiscent of the works of the romantics and the early American
poets, they will hopefully add a more leisurely pace to today's almost frantic
lifestyle.
About the Author
Born in rural Kentucky , Thomas Ray Marshall moved
to Louisville at the age of three. His father worked for the Louisville and
Nashville railroad as a fireman on steam driven locomotives and in his time at
home would often have young Tom read poetry to him from various favorite books.
Thomas Ray lived the majority of his adult years in Louisville and the mid
west. He attended Transylvania College in Lexington and received his Bachelor
of Arts degree as an English major from the University of Louisville. As a
heavy equipment salesman he worked the coal fields from Evansville, Indiana
before retiring to north west Michigan where he and Nancy, his wife of forty
four years, host The Summerplace, an intimate bed and breakfast.