Three Songs for Children

John Urban was born at Fort Jefferson, Missouri. He attended schools in Alaska, Wyoming, and California, graduating from San Jose State College, San Jose, California with a degree in Physics, minors in Philosophy and Creative Writing. He presently lives in San Jose. His Poems have been published in the Common Ground Review, New Vision, Jet Fuel Review, The Mobius Strip, and The Rolling Stone. Three Songs for Children is his first collection of Poems.

Poet John Urban considers his work to be in the Romantic Tradition of Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens, but distinguishes it as Transcendental Romanticism. His interests and influences include Classical Metaphysics and Modern Spirituality. As Elizabeth Porter has said of his work it is “rich with metaphysical insight” and through its meanderings “. . . our innocence is restored and we know ourselves to be the children to whom these Poems beckon.”

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A SMALL, TENDRILLED PATH

The small, tendrilled path came to the same place

As before, but I did not see she who had guided me.

Outside a small nearby hut, a huge parrot

Angelically rustled its feathers, then, like a slow,

Unfocused light, numbingly floated from his perch

To the porch where (after awkward steps) he fixed

An eye upon me then, seemingly, upon another.

Stepping gently upon the weathered wooden porch

I peered past a door left ajar, but, still, no one was to be seen,

Although, I suddenly realized, here were the rooms

Where, if into whose depths I stepped, she was to be found.