STAR DUST            
a collection of poems by            
Catherine E. Park           
(1911-1955)           


             Foreword

No epic thoughts are here set down
To charm you from your cares,
I sing the simple lovely things
That catch you unawares,
A budding rose, a feather white,
A star that rides the sky,
And may you find as pages turn
Bright beauty passing by.


             Afternoon in Ohio

Pale clouds that hover motionless o'erhead
Soften the breathless blue of heaven's dome.
The bright May sunshine floods the fields with gold,
How fair a place is this we called His home!
Here spacious skies bend gently down
To ring with softest haze the smiling land,
Blue over green, and green o'er earthy brown,
The breathing verdure, quickened by His hand,
Whispers a wordless hymn of praise to One
Whose love hath wrought this miracle of Spring,
This tapestry of beauty round us flung-
That sorrow-shadowed hearts once more may sing.


             Kitchen Miracle

My knife slid soberly onward
Over the firm white flesh,
The parings fell limply downward
With a soft unheeded splash.
Only a pan of water, half full of potato skins,
But sometimes in the dingiest places
A miracle begins...
What's this? A flash of color!
The blue of a wind-swept sky,
A flash of flame, of yellow,
Reflections glittering by,
For the great outdoors is mirrored
Where the dull brown parings lie.
      You blessed kitchen window,
      With your generous, lofty span,
      You've poured all the brilliance of Autumn
      Right into my old dish-pan.
      And you my friendly maple,
      Fire-bright and waving free,
      Have showered down your beauty
      To sparkle back at me.

                                     1943


             Moment Magical

What makes this moment one of mystery?
Such witching beauty broods about me here
That I can scarce believe my wondering eyes
Or fathom the strange stirrings of my heart.

This moveless vista of snow-laden trees
Against a sky dove-gray and leaning close
The soft and clinging white that broiders all
The lacy pattern of each leafless bough
Or lends new grace to bending evergreen;

The quiet dimness of the forest aisles
Where woods stand breathless on the snowy hill;
And everywhere a soft suffusing light-
How still! How shadowless! - enfolding all
This muted loveliness, that gently lies
Upon my waiting heart .. All these have wov'n
A web of wonderment to wrap me 'round.

In retrospect this moment magical,
When you and I and Beauty walked alone,
Will hold the brightness of a joy once shared,
Will twinkle like a tiny golden light.

                                                 1948
(Dedicated to Kathleen Sullivan, of Deep River and San Francisco)


         To a Rose
(after William Blake)

Little rose who made thee?
Dost thou know who make thee?
Bade thee push from out the green
Bud of lustrous, waxen sheen?,
Made thy petals sweet unroll
From that tiny satin scroll?,
Bade thee leaf by leaf unfold,
Softly glowing, pink and gold?
Little rose who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little rose, God made thee.
Didst thou know? He made thee,
Formed thee for a day's delight -
Bade thee sleep through dewy night,
Then to ope thy heart at dawn,
Wafting fragrance to the sun;
Wrought thee for a priceless gem
To set in Beauty's diadem.
Little rose, He made thee,
For our joy He made thee.

                                     1944


           The Doctor

Who comes when we are in distress?
Who hears our call and answers "Yes"?
          The Doctor.
Who four and twenty hours a day,
Is never sure of rest or play
And cannot put his work away?
          The Doctor.

Who knows no bed-time fixed and sure,
Who all our worries must endure?
          The Doctor.
Who must his every nerve command
In times of greatest peril, and
Work with calm and steady hand?
          The Doctor.

Who most deserves man's gratitude?
Who is it prayers should oft include?
           The Doctor.
Who all through life is standing by,
From birth and that first happy cry
Unto the last, when death is nigh?
          The Doctor.


           Kawartha Voices

The cool Kawartha wilds are calling me
With many-voiced music clear and sweet:
The gentle sound of wavelets, when they beat
Their myriad tiny hands so playfully,
Against the sober rocks; the sound of tree
And whispering fern when breezes fleet
Sweep lightly through to laugh at summer's heat;
The rush of waterfall that, leaping free
Tumbles its tawny emeralds through the weir
To race in foam across the blocks
Of ruddy granite. The sound
of Woodland creature scurrying o'er the ground
Or shy but friendly bird that darts away,
From off our path. Listen!
These are Kawartha voices. Have you heard?


           Memories

Sing to the winds gentle harp!
Let gales of laughter
Wake you to throbbing mirth.
Let the waft of far memory
Stir you to murmurings
Sweet as an echo.
May even the sighing of sorrow and longing
Weave only tenderest music
About your strings.

Sing to my verse gentle heart!
Yes, as you read,
Let gaiety waken an answering gladness within you,
Let memory's images leap into life at each line,
Clothing my words with the beauty
That's hid with your minds dearest treasures.


           Falling Night

Now night has drawn her purple mantle close
About her star-bright shoulders.
Ere she slips, beyond the dark rim of the west,
She dips her mantle's hem in saffron light that glows
Palely beyond the horizon's dark repose.


         So Long as There are Homes

So long as there are homes to which men turn,
At the close of day,
So long as there are homes where children are,
Where women stay,
If love and loyalty and faith be found
Across these sills,
A stricken nation can recover from
Its gravest ills.

So long as there are homes where fires burn,
And there is bread,
So long as there are homes where lamps are lit,
And prayers are said,
Although a people falters in the dark
And nations grope,
With God Himself back of these little homes,
We still can hope.


           Waking Thoughts

Some murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue;
And some with thankful love are filled,
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God's good mercy gild
The darkness of their night.


           Song of the Hills

Along the Ottawa lie ancient hills,
Somnolent veterans of weathered rock,
Scarred by millenniums of uncounted time
Yet green with verdure of uncounted springs.

When each new spring has spread abroad its flush
Of greening life that deeper, softer weaves
The tapestry of summer's varied hues,
The scars are all but hidden. Then these hills
Are clothed with beauty vibrant as a song,
While ripples bright with shimmering emerald,
Fling back the greenness of the wooded shore.

When summer storms the winding valley sweep,
Rain-lashed blat imperturbable they loom
Above wind-blackened waters at their feet;
Or drenched with gold of summer suns they dream
Through long bright hours of many a cloudless day.
Again, mysterious, blue-mist-veiled they fade
Rank after rolling rank of tree clad slopes,
Into remoteness as the night draws on.

When autumn sunsets paint with ruddier gleam
Russet of oak and gold of poplar bough,
The hillsides glow with peaceful loveliness
Across the sparkling color-dappled stream.
The gray days come; In cold, cloud-filtered light.
Silent, aloof, as sinking into sleep
Their changeless undulations dim with haze.

When winter shrouds the stark and frozen land,
White-robed, impregnable, they rear their heads
Against the slaty cloud of threatened storm,
Till lost in wind-whipped smother roaring by.
Another morn, and in the silver hush,
Snow-bright they stand and smile through crystal air,
The dark-etched pattern of their evergreens
Unrolled between white river and blue sky.

These are the mighty hills, the hills I love,
Timeless are they despite their changing face,
Unmoved by years and seasons flitting by,
Their changelessness, the enduring peace
That lies at Nature's heart,
And so on mine.

                                     1945


         The Baby

Why does the shadow of a dream
Lie deep in baby's eyes
It is because sweet memories
Reach back to paradise.
A little soul to earth comes down,
From shining realms above,
To sink a shaft in earthly heart
And let out mother love.
It frets not with a backward glance
For when it's older grown,
And learns of loving care,
It nestles close to mother's heart
And finds its heaven there.


          Palms by moonlight

Two rows of lofty palms here stretch away
And dwindle into dimness,
Flanking the long, straight road,
Building us laddered vistas
Against a moon-bright sky;
Palms that climb, tower,
And whisk past, one after one,
Flicking our faces with soundless shadows.

Afar their mingling branches
Melt into somber lines
Like the shaggy crests of waves
Poised high on either side,
Yet held aloft
By the flashing pillars beneath them.
Ever they rush to meet us,
Ever they glance aside
And vanish,
Swift as the gliding light of the headlamps
Into the darkness behind use

The swish and rustle of speeding shapes
Ceases abruptly.
The palms are there no more
To flank the long straight road,
To brush the moon-bright sky.
The motor hums on alone
Tunneling the empty silence of the air.

                                     1948


        Night Drive in Mid-winter

Ahead is the flush of a winter dawn
And a red star burning bright,
Behind is the moon with her icy stare,
Awatch o'er the waning night.

The deep-piled snows by the highway side,
Ramparts of chill blue-white,
Leap to life in the headlamps' beam
To shine with a coppery light.

They shine with a momentary gleam
As our probing ray rides o'er
Their jagged crests, then vanish again
When the dark folds in once more.

The steady purr of the windshield fan,
The motor's faithful hum,
The springs' faint jar, the heater's whir
And the grind of the tires become

A capsule of sound that wraps us 'round,
In the midst of a silence vast,
A silence that parts to let us by
And after us closes fast,

Locking the world in quiet again,
While our bubble of light and sound,
With only the moon and stars to watch,
Flits over the frozen ground.

                                     
Jan. 1949


               May Picnic

A dip, a rise of the little foot-worn path
And we had scaled the Mississippi bluff,
Our laden picnic baskets in our hands.
Up there we found a weathered picnic board.
The prankish breeze was saying welcome too.
It pounced on us with playful buffetings.
It brushed our faces, tossed our hair,
Tumbled our tablecloth, snatched at our flimsy plates.

Warm in the lavish gold of Maytime sun.
A sturdy oak, scarce swaying in the breeze,
Spread wide its quiet arms above our heads,
Yet waved a welcome with its spring-new leaves,
Like tiny ferns, or fragile elfin hands,
Gay-fluttering from their slender tasseled wrists.

Our hill sloped steeply to a guarding fence,
Where far below the silver river moved
Like a sliding floor between its earthy walls.
Its surface furrowed only by a tug,
That, dwarfed by distance, staunchly plied its way.
Along the grassy shoulder of the gorge
A friendly trail, inviting lovers' strolls,
Wound in and out among the evergreens.

Idyllic setting for a pleasant hour!
With sparkling fire, wind-sharpened appetites,
With rest and play and gay unhurried talk,
We filled the golden minutes as they passed,
Till wind and sun and joy of human hearts
Seemed blended into oneness for a while,
A treasured while of purest happiness,
As lovely as the smile in friendship's eyes.

                                             1950


               The Feather

The day was gray.
Along the empty, lifeless street
No echo rose in answer to my plodding steps;
Only the sticky hiss of tires on rain-wet pavement
Punctuated the silence now and then...
Even the thinning trees were still,
Their scattered, sodden leaves clung limply to the sidewalk
Here and there..

A dankness filled the air
As dismal as my own dejected thoughts
And down bent gaze...
Then suddenly -
A fleck of Beauty on the fallen leaves,
A tiny feather resting at my feet,
But lately drifted from some darting wing
And white as clouds that deck a summer noon.

Oh, quickly, gently let me pick it up!
When have I seen such flawless fashioning?
The winsome curving of this slender shape,
The clean sure sweep of its unbroken edge,
This silken blade, as fragile as a breath,
With barbs, like filaments minutely meshed,
This thread-like shaft as smooth as polished jade,
All these still hold the grace of soaring flight,
Where once up-borne this feather lightly sped
Through clean, cool-rushing air.. Now here it lies,
Tiny perfection nestling in my hand,
And lo! my dismal thoughts have fled away
Before joy's swift invasion.

(The Feather was published in Christian Home, Nov. 1953, in the
article entitled A Buttress to Faith by Catherine E. Park)