The Toast
Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns

(brief lusts that animated clay),

for passions wilted at the bud

and skies grown desolate and grey,

for stars that fell from tinseled heights

and mountains bleak and scarred and lone,

for seas reflecting distant suns

and weeds that thrive where seeds were sown,

for waltzes ending in a hush,

for rhymes that fade as pages close,

for flames’ exhausted, drifting ash

and petals falling from the rose ...

I raise my cup before I drink,

saluting ghosts of loves long dead,

and silently propose a toast—

to joys set free, and those I fled.

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Mike’s notes: “I seem to remember submitting ‘The Toast’ to a vanity press, before I realized there were such things as vanity presses. I even seem to remember it winning some sort of award: a commemorative coin or something like that. Not that it really matters. But I do think it’s one of my better early poems.

I wrote the original version of ‘The Toast’ circa age 19 as a college freshman or sophomore. But I was never happy with the original opening lines:

For dreams descended into dust,
for love that lingered but a day,
for passion wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and grey, …

Many years later better opening lines occurred to me:

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and grey, …

So there is something to be said for never giving up on a poem and always being willing to improve it. I believe Valery said no poem is ever truly finished, the poets eventually give up. The trick is not to give up too soon.“

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Michael R. Burch is one of the world’s most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications, including poems that have gone viral. This does not include self-published writings; if self-published writings were included, Mike’s total publications would be well over 20,000. Mike has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp blues to classical. He is also a longtime editor, publisher, and translator of Jewish Holocaust poetry and poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine, the Nakba, and school shootings. Mike’s full biography may be read here.

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The Toast Michael R. Burch

The Toast
Michael R. Burch