Category: Poems

She says with some sadness that it

interests her to see who slows to her pace

and who does not

who among her friends accommodates

these changes wrought by age and misfortune

and who does not

who is willing to listen to speak

of loss and acceptance

of grief

and letting go

and who is not.

One wonders what threatens

what beckons

what retreats

what hides

in the feckless heart

what crooked bony finger implies

you too will succumb

you too will fail, will falter, will fall.

A gifted writer, the spoken word often her undoing.

Once, frustrated with her quiet lumpy students

she muttered loudly enough for all of them to hear

Why don’t you go out and take drugs so you’ll have some ideas in your heads?

A wrong thing to say, of course, and came with consequences

as did the day she stormed out of the English Department

slamming the door and grumbling loudly that she thought

she might go postal, later to claim in her letter of apology

that she did not own a gun and was rarely homicidal.

There she went oops once again.

Up early for my day and as I look

the sky blushes pink as a baby

taking its first breath of air.

This infant will grow up quickly

no time today to sit and cuddle, no.

Up and out and going and doing

a burbling new day that will

grow old in just a matter of hours.

A tumble of starlings above gathers

and wheels in synchrony as if

each turn has been rehearsed.

A splash of yellow ginkgo leaves

brightens the lawn as bare trees

stand black against the dawn.

Snow geese long since passed through

juncos returned and the many small

birds now much easier to spot.

It is nearly December.

Can this be a sea change in me

a letting go of all those things

I once strived towards

the need to do and see and have

the deep desires for True Love

and yes Fame now vanished

along with even striving itself?

Can I be settling evenly into

the winter of my life

the long peaceful nights

with their bright moon

the busyness of summer now passed

a time I reflect on rather than plan for.

It does feel so and thus correct for

at sixty one years old this could well be

the last quarter the final season

the beds of my life properly mulched

against frost and snow the colorful flowers

spent and now apropos the quiet

reaching of roots down and down.

All he wants is to lie across my lap, still and heavy

Makes no demand to be petted scratched rubbed

Does not nose my hand or arm to do this that the other

Contented to lie here, now curled, now stretched out

a dog whose comfortable ease in the world is unmatched

whose desires are easily met by his one true love–me.

Miles lies across my lap languid

his curly head and long ears silently

encroaching ever more onto my pad of

paper until finally there is no place for it

the rough paws stretching out now and then

where and when he wishes, his belly rising

falling softly softly, his ease one hundred percent.

And when we go out his exuberance will be so

too and on those rare occasions when I must

take his brother into the world leaving him

behind, oh his anguish is entire!

He is a being who lives wholly in each moment

his devotion to the present absolutely mesmerizing.

 

I have my ways and don’t we all?

Little ways of doing things, tiny habits,

a certain way of managing a plate of food,

holding a cup, wrapping a scarf.  Etc.

My mother silently counted the steps

she took, the number of stairs up and down.

I do this too and as it turns out, several of my

siblings and now one of the great nieces.

An unseen unknown habit passed on through generations.

Or is this as simple as the fact that roughly half of

humans cross their thumbs left over right and

half right over left and therefore unremarkable?

I’d prefer to believe this small tic of my mother’s

is a tiny part of her quietly accompanying me

slyly slipping along step by step putting a bit of

order into the chaotic world she’s left behind.