Vigil On A Winter Night
I was ten, my little sister eight.
She was irreplaceable. I could not
Do without her.
Excited, we were looking out
The living room window
For a bus bringing our grandparents.
It was snowing, flakes as big as moths.
Slush was spreading on the pavement.
Exultant bells rang in the streets.
How glorious Christmas Eve
When you are a child or an old man
Like me with a child’s heart.
Her
Crimson trees of another autumn dazzle me.
Sunlight reflects like a mirror off the calm lake
Where ducks and geese swim smoothly as boats.
Could I have one hour peace of mind and heart
I would choose to spend this hour here with her
She is so central to my life.
A curative southerly wind fresh as a flower befriends
Us. Gulls in the sky hover like clouds.
The odors of frying fish make us hungry and fishermen
Wearing hooks in caps contribute “’Good day for fishing.”
We drop our perplexities in a conversation on a park
Bench as if to agree to confront them another less- lovely day.
She ties her scarf against a chilly breeze. Her green eyes,
Her voice, so soft, her kindness…Her every rare quality
Overwhelms me.
Judy Wazorick
We were in grammar school together.
She had a blue eye and a brown
And sat in the last seat of the last row.
She was very shy, but when I looked at her
She smiled at me.
Now I see she won’t be at the reunion,
And I am so sad because Judy Wazorick
Has passed away.
Sappho Poem
Sappho wrote her poems 3,000 years ago. They are considered the greatest Greek lyric poems ever written, and Sappho is heralded as the greatest Greek poet. Here is a poem of mine in tribute to Sappho.
Atthis, you ask what is more desirable,
Wealth or romantic love.
A woman in my arms is all in all,
Her eyes that contain me, the perfumed
Scent of her, her hands firm on my thighs,
Her lips on my lips wet, soft, the golden flowers
Adorning her hair, missing her when she leaves,
Longing for her, calling her name, thinking
Only of her from the rising sun that lights the world
To memories of her that I know will never forsake me.
Wealth is a false substitute for deep feelings
Between lovers, the sweet sensations of romance.
Little Friends
My dog and cats have died
But the squirrel who loved them
Comes every morning to sit on the fence
Waiting for their return.
Spring Break
I took the train in spring from college
To visit my Great Uncle
And pushed him in his wheel chair.
His spirits were high, our being together.
His friend said, “Good looking boy, Charlie”
It was my last brief visit before his death.
How mournful his life was, the loneliness
For a human presence in his sick room and the hardships
Of a sad and old widower hobbled on an amputated leg.
Why didn’t I stay with him longer? Why did I hurry
When I had so much time to spare in my young, selfish life?
A Writer Waking Up
They are there in me when I wake
In the morning after a sleepless night–
The feelings of misery that need
Medicine to dispel them, and two cups
Of coffee to waken the heart so that
I might write as I am conditioned to–
Always, however unwell.
Beautiful Lady At The Fair
At the history museum today
I saw that life-size photograph of you
Turning a corner
In the rain
Carrying a parasol
At the World’s Fair
A century ago.
What do you mean to me?
What do your long lace gloves,
Flowing gown,
Plumed hat, and gentle face
Signify to me?
Why does the memory of you move me
And puzzle me so?
What were you like?
Where were you going after the fair?
Were you meeting someone for dinner?
What had you not told anyone
That you might have told me
Had we met,
Had I known you?
Why do I feel such deep
Friendship with you
And wish I too at that moment
Was turning that corner
Under those rain clouds
Talking and laughing with you
That day long ago?
Persistence of Memories
I didn’t think that memories of that day
When we inhabited our bodies with inexpressible
Emotions, though intangible, would persist through
All the successive years, nothing as real, everything
Else vanishing in comparison, or that our lives would
Change as had waves splashing on a beach.
A Day As Flat as Illinois
A day as flat as Illinois–nothing
To look forward to, nothing to
Remember or forget; a typical day–
Waiting for something to happen.
Ernest Hemingway and Friend
At a family get together I told my mother’s cousin
From somewhere out west that I had read in a
Hemingway biography that he and Hemingway
Were close friends as boys, that both aspired to
Be writers, both contributed features to the
School literary journal, and that Hemingway
Said that in their youth his friend was
The better writer. His friend smiled at me
Modestly and replied,” I don’t know about
That. Ernie was very good.”
© 2026 David J. Rogers
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Successful artists and writers–perhaps you–make conflict-free habitual use of a dominant faculty in an art form. That is, if they are painters they wish to paint without interference–conflict free. They are confident. Hockey goalies need confidence. People in the arts need confidence just as much. They paint or write, they chisel in stone. They author books. They produce beautiful works and that is the ultimate goal of art–to add to the store of works that have beauty. Art and beauty are synonymous.
Every flaw is correctible. Once we are aware that flaws in ourselves that could sabotage our creativity do exist, we can set out to rid ourselves of them, beginning with taking action–doing something productive before another moment passes, not griping, not pitying yourself, not worrying, and not putting off. Then we will feel a burst of wellness in our minds and spirits.
heart and they write about in one form or another time and again. What had occurred in the writer’s life before age twenty-one is the period of their life where most good writers find their richest material. Writer after writer reports that. Exceptional writers have exceptional memories. Their talent to evoke from their memories in exact detail written images of the places, people, and events they recall is remarkable. Artists too may have extraordinary memories and paint visual images of them.
satisfaction watching and listening to him, and wanted to watch and listen all day. What was happening to me was beyond me to describe. I was young; I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it. But I am far from young now, and still do not have the vocabulary, not because my vocabulary is deficient, but because when you see or read or hear something that is so out of the ordinary that it is almost beyond belief, you are unprepared for it and no words in all the lexicons, even the most expressive, are sufficient. That is art.
One day in the third grade my favorite teacher, Miss Gross, standing in the front of the room, started reading something I had written. She had had us describe something that had happened to us, and because 
Every writer and painter has in their memory at least one moment and one thought or image that captures their imagination and provides inspiration for their work. Every writer and every painter reading this post remembers such a scene and such a pristine, unforgettable moment that occurred in their youth, middle age, or old age.
Then there was a sound of a wind thrashing the wheat fields, rippling the fields in great waves like breakers tumbling upon a beach. Looking, listening, alone, no fear, feeling joy, free, that was the loveliest moment in my life. Only I had seen the bird. There was no one near enough to see it, only I–the bird with the flaming red wings coming from out of the field against a background of no other movement but the wind-blown fields, and no one else on earth to witness its flight. I now in a car bound for California saw in the bird the beauty that from childhood a writer is always hoping to convey in their writing, the beauty a painter always hopes to paint.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s (1896-1940) writing was the major interest in his life. From grade school to his death nothing was quite true to him unless he had written about it. He was a fine writer, and his writing was always about himself or people he was intimate with. As a result his life was inextricably bound up with his work and his life with his kooky and attractive wife Zelda was an interest in itself. He lived a colorful life and a disastrous one with Zelda. They lived like fairy-story hero and heroine, filling newspapers with reports of their wild life-style. Much of the disaster of their lives were of their own making. Fitzgerald is called the creator of the Jazz Age which began with his writing best seller This Side of Paradise at the age of twenty-four, making him rich, his goal for writing it. The book became the voice of the younger hedonistic, thrill-loving, post-World War I generation.
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