Around midday in York, PA,On March 31st, a springtime day,Sat John Schmeer with his friends so tight,At Hooters, their clubhouse, their shared delight. Retired eye doc, his future secure,His buddies were wealthy, successful for sure.They laughed and they joked in their chosen spot,The “Orange Shorts Society”—a name they had brought. But John had a burden […]

On a crisp September morning in two-thousand-and-seven,Ashley Wallace awoke at dawn, the sky pale as heaven.Just twenty years old, in her dorm she prepared,For her first day of college, excited yet scared. She straightened her clothes, gathered notebooks with care,The mirror reflected a girl going somewhere.A knock at the door made her freeze where she

On July the fifth, two-thousand eight,David File approached his gate.In Bishopstoke, a village small,He lived alone—yet loved it all. The flats once thrived, alive with cheer,Now weeds and boards were all that’s here.Seventy-two homes stood in a line,But seventy-one were left to pine. Graffiti marked the broken wall,No neighbors’ footsteps in the hall.For eight long

One summer night in nineteen-oh-four’s glow,Anna Gray lay restless, soft and low.In a second-floor room at a B & B,her stomach churned from a mince-pie spree. The air was heavy, stale as old tin,no breeze to soothe the ache within.She tossed the quilt, she heaved a sigh,and at the sash she opened the sky. Fresh

In Edinburgh’s ward back in seventeen eighty-five,A woman lay writhing, barely alive.The Royal Infirmary, grand in its might,Yet her chamber was small, bare, and stark white. She clutched at the bed, her cries filled the air,Sweat poured down her face, despair everywhere.The nurses encircled, unsure what to do,For hours she labored, but progress was few.

At two in the morning, December’s cold air,Old Henry Hall climbed the lighthouse stair.Ninety-four years, yet steady and strong,Keeping the light, as he had all along. His comrades lay drunk, in slumber so deep,While Henry alone the night watch did keep.No modern bulbs, no wires in sight,Just candles aflame to guide ships by night. He

At 11:40 on a late autumn day,Chief Jack Schoffall parked his truck by the hay.Beside him was Donald, his trusted right hand,They’d come to assist on this rural farm land. The farmer named Jeffrey was waving with fear,Pointing behind him: “The danger is here!”A thin stream of smoke from a tall barn did rise,A problem

At ten o’clock on a September night,Two divers crawled in desperate fright.Roger, twenty-four, and Peter near thirty,Hands and knees scraped, rushing, dirty. Their home was no flat, no city floor,But a metal box with a watertight door.Two hundred miles from Scotland’s land,Beneath the sea, where oil rigs stand. Pressures deep and gases mixed,Rules of life

At seven sharp, that autumn night,Young Frederick took his maiden flight.From Melbourne’s glow, he soared away,Toward King Island, across the bay. A dreamer’s heart within his chest,To be a pilot was his quest.Though Air Force doors had closed him out,His father’s wealth erased the doubt. The Bass Strait stretched, a darkened sea,A void of night,

On an August morn in twenty-eighteen,Vladimir stepped where few had been.A taxi left him on a road so bare,The Alaskan wild—no soul lived there. With phone and charger, oatmeal too,A backpack stuffed with clothes he knew.The driver asked, “Are you sure, my friend?”Vlad only smiled, “God will defend.” His family begged, “Don’t take this quest,Bring