Poem by Francis Smith

Emmitsburg Poet Laureate

Lonely as the cloudless deep

That yawns with breathless sleep

I gasp the night-time-air

And with scarce-muted stare

Behold the lonely-vigiled night

And watch the stars take flight

Across the azure trove

Wherein the winds have wove

A wealth of patient peace

To deck the frontispiece

Of mine own vacant state

And perhaps to animate

The stupor of my soul.

God’s Favorite Son

~ Poem by John C. Costopoulos of Waynesboro, PA

He used to think

He was God’s favorite son,

Protected by a blissful

Shelter of heavenly amber.

Favored, cultivated

To blossom into

The perfected

Flower of compassion.

To succor the poor,

The sick, and the afflicted.

Who suffer occupation

And humiliation

By the shock-troops of greed.

Now he ranges

Over naïve, sullen landscapes.

His holy armor chipped away,

The power of his weapons Dulled by the predators

Of humanity.

Now, God’s favorite son

Wanders in search

Of his father,

Slogging through the muddy

Ice of strange, wasted acreage.

So he looks for shelter,

A place to heal, to prepare

For the next campaign.

In desperate prayer

That by merely returning

To the fight

His Father will

Welcome him back home.

Back to life’s fatted calf.