I love you to pieces
I told my mother each time I called
and she’d say back to me
I love you, too, girl.
I say it to my sons, too, occasionally my
black poodle which in my mind does not
diminish its meaning at all.
I would like to give a squeeze right
this minute to my
oh so huggable mother
now two years gone.
Rainy morning following a rainy night
and the little creek where my young sons
played recklessly rubber rafting after
a storm, shooting under the street
to come out on the other side
now rushes by without them.
In the woods lately my dogs
have been troubling the rotting
carcass of a snapping turtle caught
in the roots of a creek-bound tree.
I hope this steady rain has
whooshed it on downstream
making one less spot for me to avoid
out there where creatures lay just
as they’ve fallen
without ceremony
or marker.
For three weeks now in those woods
a cross, flowers and candles
have stood guard over the memory
of a young girl younger by far
than all my sons who seems
to have flung her life away
from atop the bluff
all her hope somehow
fallen to none.
And just that morning I
anticipating the return home
of my two far-flung sons
had wandered with my dogs
in our carefree way
those very woods
where that girl sought
solace by choosing
an end to the only thing
we ever truly own.
Considering and reconsidering everything
to do with love and romance marriage parenthood
the goings-on of my past the futures of my sons
all that has come and gone all that is still to be
a two-week reconnoitering has tossed me
into a philosophical soup
filled with more questions
than answers.
Where will I go from here?
Poetry suffers when my sons are here
with me, poetry, friends, work
all falls languishing by the way.
Mourning doves carry on
passing judgment. Let them!
I know where my heart lies.
It is here, with my sons and the
intendeds they care to share with me.
A rainy dreary day as I take my friend
for radiation wondering if every day
breaks bleakly facing cancer hair loss
radiation God knows what else?
And me with my happy circumstances
old wounds healed afterglow of my sons
reunited here at home with me
my Peter with his lovely Karen and
oh the contrast of one life to another
at a given point in time can be breathtaking.
All three of my sons together for once
it happens so rarely and I took no photo
but there is always today tomorrow and then
who knows when again the wedding barring
any unforeseen happenstance anyway I love
the luxury of it I eat it up with a spoon when
I can the friendly wrestling the boyhood
jokes ridiculous banter of puns wit and barbs
the wild differences among them the
continued wonder I hold of the fact that
these are my babies who once grew inside me.
I call my small red dog “Little”
sometimes because he is and then
even still at times just “Ittle” for short.
For long “Little Ittle” and then often
enough his own real name Rufus
a Scottish name for a scrappy dog
as in a feisty Scotsman and meaning
redhead, which he certainly is.
For formal occasions or for scolding
Rufus McGonagle and really for his
complete whole entire name
Rufus McGonagle Foley
which is nice because I never got to
name any of my own real babies
Foley but only instead by their father’s
surname even though I am the one by God
who grew them rather nicely within
my own body and that, my friend,
is entirely wrong.
All feels right in my world my
small own bit of it at this moment
a foolish quarrel mended an old
ugliness patched sanded painted
prettily over, my sons’ compasses
pointing home and even if I wonder
what more I might want or need
at this moment there is nothing
in this moment and that is its
own beauty.