by Brian G. Daigle, modeled after Rudyard Kipling’s “If—”
 
If you can guard your heart when all about you
              Are compromising theirs, blaming woes on you,
If you can honor yourself when all dishonor you,
              But be merciful with their dishonoring too;
If you can labor and not grow resentful in laboring,
              Or being gossiped about, don’t trade in lies told,
Or being derided, derision not harboring,
              And yet don’t dress too haughty, nor speak too bold:
 
If you can feel—and not make feelings your master;
              If you can direct—and not make directing your worth;
If you can host life’s Lents and Easters
              And to each in their seasons labor unto birth;
If you can see yourself in any one mirror
              Warped by Folly to entrap damsels and muggins,
Or see the world you’ve built, shattered,
              And with the sun arise with blistered hands.
 
If you can paint one picture of all your toil
              And sell each drop at public auction,
And watch it leave priced far less valuable,
              And never sigh a huff at hearts so misshapen;
If you can coerce your tendon and joint and heart
              To wash the feet of every weary soul,
And so honor the lesser when nothing more can you impart,
              Except breath which livens them with “Behold!”
 
If when you wrangle with children and time, maintain your grace,
              Or frolic and feast with Princes and wine—nor lose Prudence’s guard.
If neither strangers nor family can derail your pace,
              If every woman knows your praise, but none be vanguard;
If in an hour you build more than break,
              And at every turn and juncture, rise more than you falter,
Home will be made everywhere you give more than you take,
              And—the Beauty therein—you will be a Woman, my daughter! 

by Brian G. Daigle

From sideways winds a fragrant deep 
Across my face does slide. 
If memory could paint its strokes 
There would be not a drop to hide. 

But how I know this odorous joy 
I have but the faintest clue.
It is a beauty I have known before, 
A love I see in you. 

Fragrant deep from deeper streams 
Flow forth to cross this window. 
So must be near, so very near,
A flower which gives this bellow. 

Tis but a flower, or garden full, 
from whence such fragrance streams,
And what a fool I'd prove to be 
If I but looked away from what seems. 

What seems to be the most glorious flower, 
And yet all I have is a scent, 
But of deeper things this fragrance speaks,
And that search demands my ascent. 

by Brian G. Daigle 
​
Through darkened sod 
The bud bursts forth. 
In shadowed soil 
The roots grow deep. 

There was no light 
Where seed first broke. 
But holy water 
Needs no help. 

Dormant though 
In full solitude,
Through seminal strength 
The seed's faith presses on. 

It could not know 
That all about,
Above this dampened,
Blackened ground,

There is a field 
Of flowers bright 
Whose own beginning 
Was the same. 

And now the bud 
Has ascended upward,
We await the bloom 
Of deeper love. 

by Brian G. Daigle 
​
I saw her there on canvas stretched 
With strokes and pigments ever etched. 

I beheld her once on mountain peak,
Those Sawtooths reaching heaven's seat. 

I felt her dimly by the light 
That love burns when two loves unite. 

I stood within her cathedral walls
Where bread rebuilds and rebels fall.

I feared her still with raging waves
Which crashed upon far Roach's cove.

I viewed her in that father's care
When War did bind and fear ensnared. 

I kissed her, never calm nor tame,
Her power tempered not by name.  

I held her in my child's delight 
When fatherly affection did ignite.

I cried for her when broken hearts 
Still loved and shared what love imparts. 

I heard her hum from cello's deep,
From violin strings my soul did leap. 

I read her once in Homer's verse,
And by Chesterton's pen my faith she nursed. 

I counted her deep in Augustine's stream, 
When mercy crept like ivy green. 

I watched her born, I knew it true
Where daughter vacated mother's womb.

I smelled and tasted her at dusk
When mother's table I learned to trust.  

I heard her in each story told,
By Payne Street's flames, both young and old. 

I saw her too when rampart men,
First laid their eyes upon Helen. 

But never was she more terribly seen 
Than when divine blood death did ripen. 

by Brian G. Daigle
​
Amidst the pain of suffered years
There stands a brightened lane.
If only my eyes would see its path 
And remind me once again. 

I squint and wipe for clearer sight
But dimmed and veiled are they. 
I look east and up and toward a sun 
Who spills its warm array. 

If eyes were all I needed here 
To set forth where I should go 
Then friend I'd find,
Whose eyes aren't blind,
And trust they weren't a foe. 

But what I need, oh yes, I have 
My feet and faith and trust 
That down this lane I'm bound to step,
And take that step I must. 

 by Brian G. Daigle

Love is an island where all surrounding 
Mercy crashes on our shores. 

Breezes of laughter, sunrays of passion,
Contained and protected for our self-contained vitality. 

If anyone enters by sea or by air
On non-native ground they stumble. 

Immediately foreign to them is our language,
Unknown to them is our friendship's topography.  

The cities built from years of labor,
The native plants grown from soil more native,

These rocks of love formed by volcanic depth,
Ancient yet new, once fluid now stable. 

Upon this island where love knows no bounds,
These innumerable grains lapped by grace's unending wash. 

Foreigners, all, who come from without; 
exiles, we, who from within flee.

 by Brian G. Daigle 

Happy endings do exist,
Though nightfall covers morning's bliss,
Though downward goes life's plotting twist,
Though knowledge be veiled with clouds and mist,
Though nails be buried in the wrist,
Though Lent highlights the antagonist,
Easter endings do exist.