Contributor: Rhonda Johnson-Saunders

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In taking first shadowed steps as wife,
wide-eyed and wispy in winter white,
eyes fall below an arch of wicks flaming orange.
Daughter shall bring honor to her family.
Duties fulfilled without question,
for what is true love to a subservient
bride but an impractical wall built
by a modern world, she only sees
from afar, a needless barrier from
what is truth and what shall be?
Too much grief kept alive and fanned
out by instinct to survive, only tears
rain on their hardened land.
Without a dowry, without a chance
for more in life than the plight of mothers
who came before her, daughter resigns
to hide for two cycles of the moon,
mysterious rituals performed, she’s told,
will beautify her form and purify within.
Drained by coming days, she slants
but shall not break. She, his chosen one,
knows her worst fear. She may still be rejected,
returned, but never reprieved. She hopes
to be desired by his dark eyes and prays
she will be suitable to his stringent parents
who unbury old traditions with charred hands.
The fate of a daughter’s impoverished family
depends on her union, her obligatory vows.
For what is love but a weighty, hand-me-down
coat worn to burden a woman? She has shed
her layers, her tender dreams of youth, beneath
orange candlelit glow of arranged marriage. All
who belong to her new world more than she,
sing solemn wishes to husband and wife into
the chill of a moonless night.


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Rhonda Johnson-Saunders is a lifetime lover of reading and writing poetry. She enjoys writing all types of poetry, especially free verse and haiku and has been published in The Heron's Nest. When not writing, Rhonda enjoys music, genealogy, travel and best of all, being a mom to her two young sons.

Contributor: Rhonda Johnson-Saunders

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But chances are I may never dance on mountaintops, even in my dreams.
In dead of night, I wonder if the sun will rise again even in my dreams.

A long-ago love note slipped under my desk, answered now or never.
Oh, how tragic! A young heart never mended, even in my dreams.

Two pennies rubbed in your able hands could once save the world.
Two palms full of ashes scattered, I remember when even in my dreams.

Glossy smiles and paisley dresses frolic between my paper pages.
Voices from past days forget to call. I feel them often, even in my dreams.

Senility of age never fools the mourner. Winter clouds still feel gray.
Sad songs drift from open windows, taunting the trees, even in my dreams.

Forty years of fires and floods have come and gone, and still I run.
No shame in getting sidetracked by a poet's pen or chasing you again -
even in my dreams.


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Rhonda Johnson-Saunders is a lifetime lover of reading and writing poetry. She enjoys writing all types of poetry, especially free verse and haiku and has been published in The Heron's Nest. When not writing, Rhonda enjoys music, genealogy, travel and best of all, being a mom to her two young sons.

Contributor: Rhonda Johnson-Saunders

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We ride high on clouds of glory.
We love life and dream after
all these years. Untethered from
our fears, we gallop to our heartbeats
and sleep in peace on the arc
of a clear, crescent moon.
Our heroes never fall – the brave
cowboys on midnight trails, rising
with steely eyes from unmarked graves,
dreamers awakened to lasso sun light
and wrangle rogue guardians posing
at the gates of heaven. We, wide-eyed,
watch their daring spirits as they tame
wild beasts in night’s orbit and steer
Pegasus through mosaics of striking
constellations. We strive to be like them,
our heroes, the bare-backed riders
of brilliant skies in our own western reel
of eternity. We circle in Luna’s forbidden
dance, weed flower beds in her garden
and pray aloud as angels sing around
her campfire of stars. Look up
into the blue-black sky, do you see
gold? We are timeless, gems shining,
pure energy. Like our heroes, we are free-
still we ride, still we dream.


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Rhonda Johnson-Saunders is a lifetime lover of reading and writing poetry. She enjoys writing all types of poetry, especially free verse and haiku and has been published in The Heron's Nest. When not writing, Rhonda enjoys music, genealogy, travel and best of all, being a mom to her two young sons.

Contributor: Rhonda Johnson-Saunders

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Love
should be
more than
invisible
weak
like a dying wind
once a rush
tangible
robust
then gone

skin alive
warmed
by beams of
smiley-faced sun,
too happy
me flowing
into you
(my skin now stings
in wounded night)
soft stroke
caress of moon
arms like wings
open
adventurous spirits
risen
heights feared
love feared

history
we dare not repeat
on worn pages
crumbling
like this us
dying to be seen
eyes fixed
lost like a kiss
of summer breeze
in September

our love
dead from lips
to fingertips
failing
fading
and yet
we believed
felt motion
inside
unified
cocooned
in our selfish design

we swept
in stormy gusts
carried
weightless
lifted to
diamond-carved stars
then struck
spiraling
from highest altitudes
clouded turmoil
ashes smolder
at crash site
broken hearts
dug our graves
buried pain
in shallows

memories loosened
tuck easily into pockets
of washed-out blues
and smudged-gray days
never shared again,
we invisible


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Rhonda Johnson-Saunders is a lifetime lover of reading and writing poetry. She enjoys writing all types of poetry, especially free verse and haiku and has been published in The Heron's Nest. When not writing, Rhonda enjoys music, genealogy, travel and best of all, being a mom to her two young sons.