Loren Weiss wrote the following poem for the Heights Youth Center Summer Solstice Garden Tour, June 24, 2006 .

A Chance To Grow

Look out at lawns,
green, refreshed by Spring.
Dandelions blossom…
golden, full of promise,
fight for space to call their own.
Unobstructed, they grow wild,
choke out opposition,
whatever is in their way.
Bright blossoms burn out
quickly, turn to flimsy fuzz,
blow away to plant
destuctive seeds somewhere else.

Without love, unattended, kids
spring up like wild flowers.
Need a fertile garden, a place to grow.
Protected space, a place
to learn respect for what it takes
to grow tall like the steeple
at Washington and Lee.
Learn too, they are not alone.
Firmly anchored together,
withstand the storms of growing.
And in time, be there
for the golden harvest.

Loren Weiss

Loren wrote and read the next poem at the reopening of the renewed Heights Public Library, August 2006.

A New Link

From the North, it appears
as I cross Meadowbrook,
a strange arc over the road.
The long neck of a sci-fi creature?
Stretched out from the old library,
joined now in love with
a neighbor across the street,
to satisfy needs of thirsty minds.
Up close, I see the walkway,
a path connecting stored knowledge,
to visual arts, and spoken words.
A place to drink from
pools of words of great minds
willing to share, with
minds unafraid to plunge in.
Words abound, numerous
as sands on a beach,
in layers, pages of books
stacked and sorted by author
or coded by Dewey’s decimals.
Hushed silence inside,
they strain to be heard.
A bond between writers
whose works reach out,
to readers whose eyes
file them away in memory
for pleasure, or perhaps to
sooth a soul tired of loneliness.
A bridge for all seasons.

Loren Weiss