05 Friday Feb 2021
The world is a brighter place
with you in it.
The ocean is a deeper blue
for the color
you splash into my life.
The trees are a softer green
for the compassion
you offer me.
The road is a wider way
for the happiness
you spread before me.
Life is sweet
and sweeter still
with you
and only you.
~ Mark Lloyd Richardson
For Dallis Ann Day
June 2002
02 Saturday Feb 2013
Posted in Poems
Tags
family, father-daughter bond, happy birthday, joy, key of A major, love, palindrome, Poetry, sweetness of life, yellow
Hannah and Me in San Francisco, 2007
In 2007, the year this photo was taken of my daughter Hannah and me, she asked me a simple question one day. So today, February 2, 2013, on her twenty-first birthday, I am sharing with you how I responded to her question that day:
In Answer to Your Question
You tossed your question deftly in the air
as we talked one evening:
“Will you write me a poem?”
I’ve been thinking about it, and
if I were to write you a poem,
it would be in the color of yellow, like sunshine
splashing playfully over a sea of ripe bananas.
I’d also plant a yellow rose in one of the lines
to symbolize the joy of seeing you blossom.
If I were to write a poem for you I would
put your favorite number 11 in it too — a number
with simple symmetry — like gothic columns
holding up a cathedral. In a happy coincidence,
your name is constructed in columns too …
H A N N A H
a palindrome of strength and grace,
the cathedral in which you live.
Mind you, these are just my initial thoughts, but
if I were to write you a poem it would probably be
in the key of A major, because that’s a joyful key
celebrating the sweetness of life and
offering wisps of hope for each new day.
You ask, “Will you write me a poem?”
Yes, my daughter, my little girl,
let me see what I can do.
Love, Dad
17 Thursday May 2012
Posted in Poems
Nine years ago today, Dallis and I stood on the back deck of Al and Catherine Topp’s home in Los Osos, California, surrounded by family and a few close friends, and said “I Do” to one another. Each of us had been married once before, and we grasped the enormity of getting a second chance with one another.
We first met a couple of years earlier when her mother was hospitalized and I went to make a pastoral visit (this is a whole other story with a few interesting details that may need to be told some other time). It was more than a year after this hospital visit that we went to see a movie together (“A Beautiful Mind”) in San Luis Obispo and ended up falling in love! Within a few weeks of this first date I wrote the poem below – the first of many love poems I have written for Dallis.
My Beautiful One
In these green hills beauty speaks its radiance
in lustrous grasses draped in dew,
in calm shade of oak and pine,
in sunlight dancing amid the shadows…
speaking, speaking for the world’s delight.
In these wild bluffs beauty risks its heart
in thunderous crash of breaking waves,
in plunging cliffs of sculptured rock,
in enormity echoing amid the sameness…
risking, risking for the world’s repair.
In these soft meadows beauty plays its aria
in mellow throat songs of nightingale,
in whispering breezes off the sea,
in sweetness rising amid the sadness…
playing, playing for the world’s pleasure.
You, my love, my beautiful one,
are the spoken radiance,
the heart’s risk,
the playful aria for me.
Happy anniversary to my beautiful one, whose presence makes life sweet!
Words (c) 2002 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photos (c) 2003, 2010 Dallis Day Richardson
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