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