Just For Fun || Love is the Potion

(Written in the Kumboi mountain village of Papua New Guinea, at dawn.)

Through the darkness creeps the dawning

Over the low lands bluish haze

T’ward the mountain’s kingly splendor

Wrapped in swaddling like a babe.

Raindrops on my roof are tapping

And their rhythm seems to tell

If the sun is bold in shining,

Bolder still the clouds that swell.

Banana trees applaud the effort

Green leaves clapping up and down.

And the jungle birds are hooting

Their derision toward the ground.

Through the shutters light is shining,

A promise that the sun is there

Raindrops on the screen are laughing,

“Can you see how much we care?”

Green, the valley! Green, the mountains!

A brilliant, rich, and royal cloth—

’Tis the rain that brings the color

‘Tis the sun that shows it off.

Orchids, yellow, red and purple

Flames amid the falling rain

Crown the mountain tops with splendor

“God loves beauty!” Is their claim.

And the roses, crushed and beaten

By the downpour’s last onslaught

Send a fragrance made in Heaven

Scarcely captured, often sought.

’Tis the jungle island’s secret

Rain is life, and life is rain.

Who can grow under a spotlight?

Who improves with too much fame?

Beauties great and undiscovered

Thrive beneath the tropic storm

The sun will shine when God is ready.

Until then. . . well, let it pour!