Violin Visions

By George Shingler

From a young boy's experience with farming and farm animals to a twenty-eight-year spiritual work experience in a cemetery, I was molded in my love of life and Mother Nature and the reality of death. Some of my poems are autobiographical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662468001

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Violin Visions

George Shingler

Copyright © 2023 George Shingler

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-6624-6799-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-6800-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Winter 2020

Winter 2018

Winter 2018

Winter 2019

Summer 2018

Fall 2019

Violin Visions

Violin Visions

Violin Visions

Winter 2019

Violin Visions Interstate

Fall 2018

Summer 2020

Winter 2018

Spring 2019

Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Spring 2019

Summer 2018

Summer 2018

Spring 2018

Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Spring 2019

Fall 2020

Spring 2020

Summer 2019

Spring 2019

Spring 2020

Summer 2020

Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Spring 2019

Spring 2020

Summer 2018

Spring 2018

Summer 2018

Violin Visions Pride

Spring 2019

Fall 2018

Fall 2019

Winter 2019

Fall 2020

Summer 2020

Fall 2020

Fall 2020

Fall 2020

Fall 2020

Fall 2019

Fall and Winter 2020

Fall 2018

Winter 2020

Winter 2019

Summer 2020

Fall 2020

Fall 2019

Winter 2019

Spring 2020

Spring 2020

Summer 2019

Winter 2020

Spring 2020

Summer 2020

Summer 2020

Summer 2019

Winter 2019

Winter 2020

Winter 2020

Fall 2019

Summer 2020

Fall 2020

Winter 2019

Fall 2019

Winter 2020

Winter 2019

Winter 2020

Fall 2020

Winter 2019

Spring 2018

Winter 2020

Summer 2020

Summer 2018

Summer 2010

Summer 2019

Summer 2018

Summer 2019

Spring 2018

Fall 2019

Summer 2019

Spring 2019

Early Spring 2018

Spring 2018

Summer 2018

Spring 2018

Spring 2018

Spring 2019

Spring 2019

Spring 2019

Spring 2018

Spring 2019

Spring 2018

Spring 2018

Violin Visions

Summer 2019

Fall 2018

Fall 2019

Winter 2018

Fall 2018

Spring 2019

Spring 2019

Summer 2018

Fall 2018

Summer 2019

Fall 2018

Fall 2018

Fall 2018

Winter 2018

Winter 2018

Winter 2019

Spring 2019

Summer 2019

Summer 2018

Summer 2019

Summer 2018

Summer 2019

Summer 2019

Summer 2018

Summer 2019 and 2018

Late Summer 2019

Spring 2018

Summer 2018

Fall 2018

Fall 2018

Fall 2019

Winter 2020

Fall 2019

Spring 2019

Winter 2019

Winter 2019

Winter 2020

Winter 2018

Winter 2020

Spring 2019

Summer 2020

Winter 2019

Spring 2019

Winter 2018

Winter 2020

Summer 2018

Winter 2020

Winter 2019

Winter 2019

Summer 2019

Winter 2018

Winter 2020

Summer 2020

Fall 2019

Winter 2020

Summer 2018

Spring 2020

Fall 2018

Child of Nature

About the Author

To all those in my life's time that made these poems possible.

Foreword

The creative mind can be ageless. It is the fruit of all the years of study and wanting to express one's talents, experiences, and memory in poetry. The focused power of observation has written many verses.

Winter 2020

Violin Visions

Sun dark, sun night, cartop overhead

Down the death, the light of day is not fed.

Is it better at eleven east than at twelve noon?

It might help if I had a silver spoon.

I think that I'm in love with air black.

It's like the sun coming into an open sack,

Could it be that I could wear a disguise?

If I had a sombrero with under hat-eyes?

But that would not be a good thing to do.

Since Mama did give me her own blue

I'm glad in genes her blue won over brown.

My prism can better see the rose and the sundown.

No wonder I like perfect shadow noon and night,

And snow before headlight reflections so bright,

No wonder I like the golden voice when J. J. sings,

And shaded soft ice cream and glory shiny things,

Colors, more colors, and shades, how many are they?

Between lipsticks and paints, I would have a full day,

Violins play my maestro shadows on the fence.

New Year's Day, a new decade. It makes good sense.

Play the other side, light is low to fade.

The Clemson Tiger orange has a lot of marmalade.

Winter 2018

Violin Visions

Looking up into the under dark

When there's nothing but crud on the bark.

The squirrel's nests are not so grim.

There's some leaf brown behind the dim,

Sun breaks closing on a mild winter day.

Oh, how the picking-up wind has come to sway,

The old oak's limbs are talking way up there,

And raindrops are random in the air.

Darker cloud west looms to come pushing in

How close to the ground is the Carolina wren.

They know the holly and the cherry laurel tree,

There are fewer downpours in the loner inside of me,

They both have a really big orb.

With thick tiers of green catcher's rain to absorb,

But the wind will be looking, increasing the flow,

And feathers will be dancing up and down the row.

It's a rhythm, maybe on into the night.

For the best shelter roosting the upper holding tight.

Here I am writing on toward four.

The sun broke and you know clouds closed the door.

Violins play the poet his lines on the outside

Where his field of vision is far and wide.

Tiny feathers in a raintree in his concern

We are all living it together, they may learn.

Time in global warming is later than you think,

Too many little feathers may become extinct.

Violins play the wind, the trees, the rain, the bird.

Nature's best show is not seen and not heard.

Winter 2018

Violin Visions

I remember them five miles south below the Judy store,

And how my father and Uncle George would argue politics some more.

They sure knew how to noise their voices and disagree.

Jackie was the only son left and older than me.

The kerosene lamps in the living room gave off enough light

To make some shadows and escape the night.

The house was dark weathered wood with the kitchen behind.

Uncle Edwin Hughes was a tall, tired old uncle of mine.

He had worked hard and labored all those years.

How he was worn out; I remember his face and voice, I am in tears.

I was told Uncle Julius was found out back in the cornfield.

He fell out, never to come back for his evening meal.

How George and Margaret cried when they lost little Florie Ann

A child going home so soon, we really cannot understand.

Franklin was in the Navy, somewhere out in Texas Bay.

He looked in his shades, he was proud, and had a part to play.

I remember he and his wife came up to visit and dine,

The white table Mama prepared for the occasion was very fine,

And to top it off was a fancy serving of fruit cocktail.

All the deep reds, yellows, and fruits of grapes green pale.

I think that those years were in fifty-one and fifty-two.

My Riley Road years with my family were too few.

We had moved up the road to Calhoun County.

And grew wheat, corn, and cotton, no barley bounty.

Violins play the memory sights of looking back long ago

It's like looking down the long corn and cotton row.

Play, there it is, there at the far end.

Come back, time, this way, you will be my pen friend.

Winter 2019

Violin Visions

I looked up above my picnic table, they both were gone

Both squirrels' nests were pushed through, they were windblown.

Weather can be destructive and cruel to them, I'd say.

If it were to happen, I hope it happened in the light of day.

It took some time for little feet and mouths to will,

Up and down the tree with leaves, twigs, and sticks to fill.

Their instincts told them where and how to put them together

That had the best chance to withstand the wild windy weather,

How terrible to lose their homes that bide in the blast

So many things high up in the wind cannot long last.

Now that they are bereft and left on the old oak bare

I had to make this written expression that I care.

I must fully understand in winter this loss to them.

Their homes within off-shots out on a broken limb.

Where will they go now to spend the night?

When the sundown sun has taken their last light.

Maybe they know by now that I am their friend,

And have around on every side a fence within,

I'm the hand who threw out the dream nut English walnut

A gourmet feast they would never get with any kind of luck

Maybe they can shelter under my deck or my sheds

Except for a cat, there are no other uneasy dreads

Maybe the wind will not be too high for them to gather

Lower and calmer and not strong enough to batter

There's not left too much below on a raked-up ground

But there must be enough still lying close by around,

Violins play lamentoso, my sorrow for their loss,

I'm going in to get a few more big ones to toss.

Play, forgive us, as we usually don't look up to see

Home loss is also for others, other than we.

Summer 2018

Violin Visions

Look out down the mountain, see hawk's sky

Sown there closer to the bottom earth than I

Over the expanse is a high sienna rock wall

Standing three or four hundred feet tall.

I remember, Sugar Loaf, my beginning your ascension,

And how I liked the steps and their extension.

Passing the nice east lookout on lower ground,

I really got after it on my upward bound.

Sometimes I needed small feet to get up there

To avoid some back steps took some care.

The path, the steps and narrow were just for one

Get up behind me until the climbing is done,

A small tree to grab and hold on to along the way

Was a convenient pull-up God sent, I'd say.

There I was, steep in the dim and the dark on before

Until the open top full of spiritual Indian lore.

Sugar Loaf, your summit arrival was a special occasion

Despite passing some deep drop-offs of intimidation

I looked out, I looked up, and I looked far away

All of the descriptions of land space came into play.

Violins play the upscaler's triumphant song

I didn't fall or twist an ankle, nothing went wrong.

Play my eyes looked down on wide wings from above

If this isn't living, then life is without love,

Play the sunny high view going around every side.

May the eagle's soaring spirit be my golden guide.

Fall 2019

Violin Visions