Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The University of Granddaddy
Class meets on the wooden steps of the old back porch
Syllabus:
Talking. Listening. Whittling on a length of cedar
Please bring: a Schrade-Walden Old Timer pocketknife
Lawrence Hall
A re-write and re-post of an older
poem:
Pale Shadows and Seasons
Pale shadows and seasons and leaves drift by
The slanting sun of February falls
With merciless mortality upon
Our weak attempts to prepare for spring
The leaves we mulch today mulch us
tomorrow
The roses we prune in anticipation of
June
Await the night when we are pruned for
them
While the wolf pack keens beneath the ancient
moon
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
No, It Wasn't the Medications
Last night my friend and mentor was dreamed to me
He was himself again, and so was I
Among Spenserian fields and forests and friends
In a summer world all warm and green
In a time of waiting rooms and surgeries
Slow days of headaches and painful awkwardness
Appointments, lab reports, diagnoses
He came as a comfort, a vision of what will be
We did meet again, and we did smile
And so, just so, we all will meet again
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Maybe
Winter is Tired
And taking a break for a few sunny
days
Icicles have dripped and dropped away
to earth
Merry breezes breathe away dawn’s drifting
haze
A warm front soon after the new year’s
birth
But even now the north drops down in
greys
The shifting wind blows dark, decaying
leaves
Away to prep for tomorrow’s icy
glaze
As the wilding weather bobs and
weaves
The paling sun drops coldly in the
west -
False spring in its own turn now
takes a rest
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
This is the Church House, This is the Steeple
This is the church house
This is the steeple
Open the doors
And see all the…rioters, ICE, podcasters, snoops, gossips, busybodies, stirrers, activists, influencers, selfie-istas, agitators, provocateurs, disruptors, boors, instigators, trespassers, hecklers, hooligans, gorms, dips, loonies, stooges, vandals, protestors, patsies, and puppets
(One hopes they left a few coins in the poor box)
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“A
Republic, Madam, if You Can Keep It”
-attributed to Ben Frankling and many others
Americans, please take time for
reflection -
While watching the rioting we might
take note
That in the last presidential
election
35% of the people did not bother to
vote
How Many People Didn’t Vote in the
2024 Election? | National News | U.S. News
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Where We Grew Up is not Where We Are
Our fathers strong, home from Europe and the Pacific
Worked confidently at building a peaceful America
Lean, weathered, war-weary men in chambray shirts
Who sweated to make their crops and cattle grow
But the feed store shut up shop in the 60s
The gas station pushes eight-liners and vapes
The old picture show where John Wayne rode
Is now a missionary Christian fellowship or something
The drugstore with the best comic books burned long ago
Once-busy sidewalks are mostly weeds and grass
Our favorite rocker on the A.M. radio
Has long since been Forest Lawned in bronze
Our fathers are buried, and on the palantir
A man in an SS coat orders us to report each other
