A face in the clouds, Square Lake

Retirement

the back porch faces the lilacs

and the maple
 

an IPA in a frosty glass

in my hand
 

the wren sings from the drop line

a cascade of sweet notes

a measure or two
 

down the street a mower hums

the neighbors’ radio pulses with country western

somewhere distant, a chainsaw revs and is silent
 

the lawn before me

freshly mowed and fragrant
 

a butterfly lands on a yellow snapdragon

and is gone
 

above, the sky is deliriously blue behind the green maple leaves

high cirrus, pale and empty, drifts westward
 

my mouth full of bitter hops

there’s a good book on the table next to me
 

and the afternoon

stretches out ahead

like a sunburned prairie

Wide Wide Land

this place of memories

is a wide wide land

where we become children

again

and things I see

are known only to me.

where once

I ran across vast meadows

and held your hand.

 

I sing songs

that now only I can hear.

the past is gray now

cloudy, fading, falling

and I reach for a memory

as if it would bear me up

in this wide wide land.

The Maple, Again

 

four sparrows take a dust bath

where the old maple used to stand

it graced our summer with shade

and fall with a riot of colors

winters it stood barren

bereft

until the hope of spring

brought green buds

and leaves

and shade again

but now the sparrows linger

where our maple stood

only to fall to rot

toppled by the wind

leaving a place

that the sparrows remember

A survivor, shopping

he totters forward

leaning on the grocery cart

hair as white as moonlight

his face wrinkled with some tragedy

I think

his hands, knobby with arthritis

a white knuckled grip on the cart

he pauses in the rows

and rows

and rows

of abundance

selects a package of coffee beans.

as he stretches his hand forward

I see it

a ghostly string of tattooed numbers

on his forearm

I wonder

how he can carry

 the weight of memories

of a place so inhumane

then I turn away

looking down at my own arms

and find a sleeve

to wipe my eyes

Bedtime Poem

Bedtime poem

Cat curled close

On the blanket

Rain slips softly

From  eaves to gutter

To down spout

The darkness is complete

To the lawn

Where annelida awaken

Cat crowds me

Now against my thigh

Now across my lap

A poem or two for good

Dreams awaken as the

Pillow calls out

Spin out the night

In the wonder of dreams

Of places that seem normal

Behind my eyelids

But curious puzzling

With the dawn

And in the morning

Cat stretches yawns looks at me

The door

Me

The door

And the air at the window

Smells like worms

IN DREAMS

I reach for her in the night

knowing she is curled into dreams

softly breathing

I know she’s there

Still, I reach into her dream

she comes back to the threshold

long enough to say

love you

A hand holding mine, warmly

and the night breathes softly

through this phase of the moon

The Sewing Basket

 

Mom had a sewing basket

she’d pull out of an evening

with a pile of mending

and while the tv murmured

she sat by a bright lamp and

pulled needle and thread

through

a torn shirt pocket

a hem falling down from a skirt

or hang  a button back on jeans

she was like that with the family

when children bickered

she set things aright

pull the threads tight

that kept us a family

when Dad was upset

we’d hear the quiet conversation

a murmur through the thin bedroom door

she’d put a button on the discontent

pull us back together, a family

she’s gone now

gone to be with Jesus

I have a sewing basket too

and mending to do

time and again with my wife

I learned it from Mom

patiently pull the threads

snip the loose ones

patch the holes

and carry on