Heart Speak

By Dennis McCormack

Heart Speak presents a collection of poetry that comes from deep within author Dennis McCormacks heart, seeking to address some of the ultimate questions in our lives: Is life eternal, and how does a person make up their mind about the answer to this question? Should the human person be the standard of values always? Can oceans heal us? Can Angels heal us? Can God and Man heal us?

McCormack explores these questions and others in verse, relying on tradition handed down to him through both childhood and university study. The heart and the mind play a special role in poetry, in our lives, our marriages, friendships, civilizations, and filial relationships. The poet composes his song and poem as his heart and mind dialogue together finally finding unison when the task is done. Poetry and song come from the heart because they are inspired by it as a first step in the poems coming to be and be seen.

The Rain Falls on Heaven and Earth

Rain fell on roads not taken,
Flowers blooming, blushing at friends,
Celebrating love-springs birth,
On wise folk praising him
With precious gifts for children,
Angels at their gates.

The day we met, tears fell,
Blessing all of us, and your heart
Passing cups of hope
To Gods friends at sea,
As the old orange sun turned yellow
To the sounds of Shenandoah.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462025916

Dennis McCormack

Dennis McCormack was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He received a BA from Saint Marys University in Halifax in 1970 and an MA from the University of Toronto. He was editor and founder of the Atlantic Braille Press. He and his wife, Bertha, have three children.

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HEART SPEAK

DENNIS MCCORMACK

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

HEART SPEAK

Copyright © 2011 by Dennis McCormack.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-2590-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2591-6 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 07/05/2011

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Home And Away

Chapter 2

Angels And Us

Chapter 3

Creation

Chapter 4

Seascape

Chapter 5

Sacred Themes

Chapter 6

Romance

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I dedicate this little book to family friends and associates I have met throughout life. Your words of encouragement and wisdom are hopefully reflected in the poems I am about to share. I do want to mention a number of friends and teachers who encouraged me to take a poetical direction in life. My special thanks to the late Phyllis Wright MacCormack, poet and author of Listen, Lovers’ Poems published by Simon Fraser University in 1992. For over forty years Aunt Phyllis shared her poetry and wisdom with our family who lived in Halifax and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Forman Nickerson, teacher of English at the Halifax School for the Blind, encouraged me to write at a young age through sharing his observations on the great writers and political figures of our time at his home on Wellington St. in Halifax. He was an inspiration to me always. Dr. John MacCormack, professor of history at Saint Mary’s University, had an enormous influence on my approach to values and to history in general.

John Leduc, my brother-in-law, was the first family member to call my work poetic and encouraged me to complete these publications. His son, Michael, the poet, and wife Laura joined John in his efforts to get me to the printer.

Members of the community also encouraged me to write Heart Speak. My special thanks to my daughter, the artist, Teresa McCormack, who completed the wonderful images for the book;