Reflections in the Dark: A Book of Poems

By Shannon M. Stowers

As a presumptuous, yet well-meaning young Christian girl growing up in Sussex County, Delaware, author, Shannon M. Stowers, made up stories in the form of poetry. In the midst of writing these poems, her own story began to form. Shannon saved each original piece of her poetry in a large manila envelope, copying them into a special, garden-themed journal.

With this publication, she bares her heart, letting you into her thoughts, doubts, feelings, many struggles and seeming triumphs up to the point of her beloved grandparents dying, each from cancer, just months before she graduated high school during the turn of the millennium.

Marking the beginning of her years long struggle with her belief in the Christian God, Shannon ends her book with a reminder all of us would do well to remember, even through these uncertain times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387617265

Book preview

A Haiku Poem

I saw the stars as

Tears of plenty trickling

From Majestic eyes.

A Jewish Girl in 1939 Poland

(Retitled from Forever Cry in 2018 after recent analysis. Written from a life-long interest and deep sympathy for the people involved directly and indirectly in the Holocaust of World War II and the overall psychology of Nazi Germany.)

She clings to an old stump in the forest.

Her hand grazes the soft, green moss on its side.

A tear runs down her pale white cheek

As she remembers her mother and father...

What happened to them and why.

She loves them so dearly.

She reaches behind to touch,

To confirm that she had, indeed, been wounded

And tightens her eyes in pain.

Flashbacks appear in her foggy consciousness.

The crack of gunpowder ignited,

A bullet piercing her back.

She covers her eyes with her blood-soaked hands

And, frightened, quietly cries in sorrow.

She feels like she can run no longer.

She cannot put it out of her mind:

The eternal picture of her family,

Suddenly taken from her.

Piercing screams have been forever etched into her psyche.

Soon it will be her own ending.

She touches the ground where her blood has pooled

And glares at God in tragic despair.

She realizes stillness is almost upon her

As she closes her wet, swollen eyes one last time.

Her body, tired, slumps closer and closer to

Newly felled, bloodied leaves on the ground,

Until she faintly feels under her the relieving cool of the earth,

Of which all of them return home.

Distant Hills

Lightning strikes a distant hill

And there he sees you dark and still.

Alas, he is a stranger there,

A stranger who is standing fair.

Ashamed of how you look and feel,

You hide your face and cry.

Your black hood of your cloak

Covers your head and face,

But, lo!

Your beauty rises from those shadows

And over the gloom and sorrows.

You feel a touch,

A touch of he who stood

There far away from thee.