Whispers’ Guest Editors--Inge Wesdijk (Daginne Aignend)--The Netherlands and Caryl Calsyn--The United States

Dear Whispers' Friends,

It is such a pleasure to share with you our first two guest activity/columnists in an effort to provide words that matter in a global outreach. This new version of Whispers gives us an international format for sharing the gift of words. I chose a poem previously published at Whispers in their honor.  I'm deeply grateful for their contributions.

I hope many of our past contributors will join us in this new view.  I wish all of you the best always. Keep you candles burning brightly!

Blessings,

Karen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inge Wesdijk (Daginne Aignend)--September 2017 Activity Editor

The old lady's wisdom

Morning dew, wandering through the city
A lonely passenger, trying to clear my head
Suddenly the invigorating scent of coffee
The appetizing aroma of fresh baked bread

A voice, inviting me friendly
Girl, why do you look so sad
Come over and sit down here with me
My coffee is the best you ever had

She smiles, the wrinkled old lady
When you are refreshed and well fed
You will expel your melancholy
And treasure every day's joy instead

Inge Wesdijk is a Dutch writer, poetess, and photographic artist who works under the pseudonym Daginne Aignend. She likes hard rock music and fantasy books. She is a vegetarian and spends a lot of time with her animals.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caryl Calsyn—September Columnist/Thoughts to Ponder

The Golden Door

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to be free, the retched refuse of your

teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-

tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

(as it appears on the Statue of Liberty, by Emma Lazarus)

I am an immigrant. You are an immigrant.

Whether coming to America in recent times

or many generations before, we all came from

other lands. Only a few are Native Americans.

There is an indignant underground and above

ground cry that we should allow no more

immigrants to touch this country’s shores.

Advocates propose that man's humanity to man end.

The tired, the poor, and tempest-tossed, if these

advocates have their way, would find the lamp

extinguished and a closed and locked Golden Door.

Caryl Calsyn is a retired interior designer and currently serves as the President of the Highland Lakes Writers’ Club.  She serves on history related boards and sings in a church choir and a chorale.  She is a widow and has two sons living, one deceased and feels blessed with grandchildren.  She loves writing poetry and still finds it amazing that 113 have been published at Whispers, Creative Inspirations, Westward Quarterly, The Storyteller, The Oak and other publications.