Waltzing with Time

By Stan Dean

This is Mr. Deans third book of poetry after Loss and Remembrance and In the Autumn of Always.

Waltzing with Time is a collection of new and selected poems from his first two books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514406960

Stan Dean

Stan Dean is retired as director of theatre at Pensacola State College in Florida, where he still serves as lyceum director. He has been a musician, an actor, a director, and an educator for over fifty years. He holds a BA in theatre arts from the University of West Florida and an MFA in drama from the University of Oklahoma, where he was a Sam S. Shubert Playwriting fellow. He also studied creative writing with novelist-in-resident Harry Crews at the University of Florida. He writes plays, short stories, and of course, poetry. Stan is a member of the Drama League and the Academy of American Poets. Cover: Mark Peterson Administrative Assistant: Kelly Ryan Author Photo: Mitzi Holt

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Copyright © 2015 by Stan Dean.

Credits

Cover design: Marc Petersen Editorial Assistant: Kelly Ryan Author Photo: Mitzi Presley Holt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 10/14/2015

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CONTENTS

Waltzing with Time

Discovering Us

Sundays in the Orchard Grove

Loss and Remembrance

The Banyan Tree

The Canneries of Monterey

Echo of a Kiss

Fire Life

Looking Back

The Man Who Walked on Glass

From the Mouths

The Mostly Empty Field

The Red Sign

On a Day Like This

Canada Rain

The Lighthouse

A Passing

Inquire of All Things

The Littlest Sister

New Life

Hidden in Shadows

It Was Cold Outside

Listening

When Time Deserts

A Night’s Moment

How to Find Water

Elegy for a Young Man

The Cathedral

The Beggar Woman of 47th Street

A Walk with Shannon

Best Friends

In the Mountains of New Hampshire

Being There

Ironin’ Did Here

Dancers

Inside Days

Of a Night

The Year of Two Summers

A Lowing

To M.

The Struggle

Two French Soldiers

Irony

Invictum

Letter From a Stranger

The Photograph

A Path to Shade

What Dreams May Come

Also by STAN DEAN

Loss and Remembrance

(Ruminations on the Speed of Life)

In the Autumn of Always

To everyone significant in my life

This book is

FOR YOU

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance

- Carl Sandburg

WALTZING WITH TIME

My dance with time

Did not always match

The music being played

Fast steps eluded me

Swing was not my thing

For the foxtrot I cared not

And who can dance to jazz

Then I found the waltz

It was lively and uplifting

Moving smoothly and drifting

The first dance face-to-face

A seductive flight of grace

Three beats of sophistication

Not hindered by interpretation

I left the swing behind

And put the foxtrot away

For someone else some other day

Now I waltz with time

Comfortable in its rhythm

A serene dance that ends

As graciously as it begins

DISCOVERING US

When August with its searing humid heat

Has laid a cooled September at our feet

And put the summer storms to rest again

That settles now into the gentlest rain

And sends the great white birds off flying south

Away from winter’s ever-grasping mouth

And turns the green leaves into colors vast

Now breath to us comes easily at last

To fill our lungs with Autumn-tempered air

And place the pink upon your cheeks just there

Hand on your waist we cross the broken bridge

And lay a blanket on the nearest ridge

Then stretch out full to catch the