Each month we will be featuring a guest writer and this month's contribution is from Charles Albano. Dr. Charles Albano is an adjunct professor of management at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. He enjoys the creative challege of writing poetry that is wide-ranging in scope and form. Charles' poems now appear in numerous sites on the internet. His business site contains rather unique leadership-oriented poems.
"Go ahead and jump,
To that one from the shore;
It's such a sturdy lump,
And there are plenty more."
"Just take a running start,
With care and be precise,
Then spread your feet apart,
To balance on the ice."
"Sketch out a mental path,
At least five jumps ahead:
Trust in your body math,
To tell you where to tread."
And soon he found himself,
Some distance from the shore,
Atop an icy shelf,
Planning one step more.
The sun shone through at last,
Beaming on his chessboard,
And two bright hours passed,
Unnoticed and ignored.
He sailed his ice-ship well
Into the channel deep;
How long he could not tell,
Its sturdy strength would keep.
He drifted toward the sea;
There seemed no sign of melt--
"This doesn't bother me!"
Then underneath he felt,
A tremored crack expand.
His feet began to spread;
He hungered for the land--
Got shipping lanes instead!
There, floating on a slab,
Too small to long sustain,
His future now looked drab,
And filled with frozen pain.
The noon sun beat the ice;
The water level rose,
To add a certain spice,
Of adventure to his toes.
"Where have all the ice slabs gone?"
He searched in vain to find,
But one- the one he stood upon;
The others now were far behind.
He said a prayer to God,
Because he could not swim.
This thing he'd done was odd,
A simple-minded sin!
No doubt he would have drowned,
In that polluted bay,
Had not by chance he found,
A "paddle" float his way.
On wet and numbing knees,
He paddled that frail craft,
Unaided by the breeze,
That blew against the aft.
The thinning ice no longer white,
The offshore game no longer fun,
He paddled fast with all his might,
Against the clock and that cruel sun.
His melting raft could not,
A moment more endure,
When he reached a landing spot,
Upon the blessed shore!
(C) Charles Albano, 1998
* Memory of a personal incident on the Newark Bay.
You can reach the author here.
You can find more articles in the archive under Guest Writer's Corner
| Home | New | Table of Contents | Search | Archive |