Selections from Trella Romine's library at Terradise Nature Center
Ray Romine Poems
Time is the stuff which successful men take
And budget with consummate skill;
It’s also the item my type of man makes
The Frankenstein hardest to kill.
The problem guys like me’ve let swamp’em:
How to swap ennui for wampum.
by Ray Romine Saturday, August 12, 1950
A garish blonde in father ‘s car–
How asinine, to me, you are.
Out to impress the lesser lights,
You’re one of Nature’s parasites.
Yet, all this love you have for you
Makes other nit-wits love you too.
But how the Hell, if you are right,
Do I become a parasite?
by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 24, 1946
Prices so steep’ll
Discourage people.
by Ray Romine Wednesday, August 22, 1951
And now the evening hour, when Care
Who dogged my steps all day
Retreats as darkness threatens there
Along her threadbare way.
What if tomorrow once again
She calls at dawn for me?
Day holds no terrors for one when
The twilight sets him free.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 24, 1950
I’ve never liked to wash my hair,
But I’ll control my heart-torn sob–
Why worry over what becomes
Annually, a smaller job?
by Ray Romine Sunday, August 12, 1951
Hail rebirth
Of the magic earth–
Let rain-soaked green sod spring it;
Let the happy brook
From his green-walled nook
Chortle and crazily sing it.
Hail rebirth!
Let the robin’s mirth
Arouse the bees, who spread it
As they stagger round
Wild-flower town
Giving the south wind credit.
Hail rebirth–
And each bud’s new girth
Is a vernal indication
Of the blossom-strewn start
or earth’s April part
That beggars the proclamation.
by Ray Romine Saturday, November 11, 1950
The clouds are non-existent in the blue September sky;
The Goldenrod is waving at the Goldfinch on the sly;
The creek is calling faintly as it bubbles slowly by–
But the call of duty, stronger, forces me to live a lie.
I cannot heed the inner urge I feel in every pore
To throw the weight of worry off, and slam a mental door;
And, like the Butterfly, just flit away from things that bore
To feed on Nature’s choicer nectar, now and evermore.
by Ray Romine Sunday, September 14, 1947
Don’t make those unbelieving sounds
That leave your tonsils flapping,
For children grow by leaps and bounds–
Especially when I’m napping.
by Ray Romine Thursday, September 11, 1952
I soak it good each night or so
With quantities of H2o;
I aereate, I fertilize;
I mow it when it tries to rise,
And though grass gave up long ago,
It is nice the dandelions should grow.
by Ray Romine Tuesday, April 28, 1953
Happiness!
Dough may not buy it,
But I’ll confess
I’d like to try it.
by Ray Romine Saturday, April 29, 1950