Why search purposefully fabricated, lying walls,
That trashy sweet gum, this August depletion;
Listening for the….A…purveyor of truth?
Again, I enact this sweet, silencing ritual
With little nuance; certainly with no perfection.
With paper…neatly creased, and pen gently held
I smile, waiting for Muse to tweak the light.
Muse is our deliverance…or…our false prophet;
Which? “Ignorance is bliss.” Just give me light!
I’ll stick that sign at the end of the drive
Monitoring any respond…spying through
Cracks at the sides of shades, now drawn,
Which, unlike my neighbors’, were raised
Night and day in defiance of hidden lives.
Must I place items neatly on slackly shelves
Or will the sign itself be enough to summon
What I am seeking….and what am I craving;
A grimace, a laugh, a Jehovah’s Witness tract;
A splintered door jamb and feet rushing in?
What would adorn a shelf, entice another,
That they would not already have, though,
Perhaps, deny? My truths, though clean,
Sparkling spirals to me are likely idiocy
To them as theirs to me. The sign is enough.
I held my father’s hand once more last night, but only in a dream. I did not see his face or hear his voice or recognize a nod, but his ever-gentleness stood to sooth my unease of muddled senses. Almost thirty quick years have gone since I stood by his bed. Did I, at first, hold his hand? A white cloth, folded in half, lay over his mouth for moisture; rare tears traced crow’s-feet to his pillow and I, new to dying, wondered if he cried from fear. But through the muffling wetness, struggling not to sob, “Your mother…” And then I understood, “I will take care of her.” I promised; only then…I remember, now…did I take his hand. The hand I held last night was not that of thirty years before; his hands, in life, had the square bluntness of his days of labor. Always, he carried a pocketknife to turn the grease and grit from beneath his nails into minute, curled strings of grime. The hand I held in my dream was only his because I just knew and not recognition by touch; the hand I held was feminine, covered with the sheltered, thin skin of one needing protection. I’ve pondered the paradox all day, wondering why the hand was his, but not; time could not have altered to such extreme, a touch etched in memory. Believing only in our faulty minds, I can only conclude that I, so desiring that my father might know I have kept my promise, conjured a dream, a visitation; the hand I knew as his is my mother’s I hold today. This is a re-post from years ago; a memory of the time my father was dying in 1982.
Those we’ve left by the road still wander among us.
We lean on their diminished bodies as we move;
Talc-tasting air, burning of urine and hot stones,
singes our skins, shriveling our memories of them.
A whisper has passed: this road is closed to us.
This ditch of stubble will be our home for an hour,
a day, an eternity, until our fate again inhales,
forcing us up to walk, to endure this endless road.
Ahead, wavering green hills reject our pleas.
Their distant canopies’ chattering falls away,
falls to fear, as we gaze with one breath held.
Another stone is thrown to bloody our hearts.
My child on the sharp, hard rack of my hip
stares…..eyes passive as shimmering stones.
My child of bone in his withered flesh bag…..
clenches the one ragged wall of his home.
This was originally titled Refugees and was reproduced here with a few changes from a copy dated October, 2003
final bucket list:
Do not make a bucket list
green frog is singing
Once again, delightful squeaking swarms the trees,
celebrating en masse, here to there; chucked down
by some suspect deity who, for whatever reason,
laments or teases my petering out; my “it is what it is”
Rescued, again, by one with a scratching voice;
compelling a lifting of chin, a prying away of eyes
from ground, from monitored, measured steps;
I search the canopy for Joy: There! She lingers!
Perhaps, I am too quick to call it Greed:
this yearning for an accumulation,
this lust of Mine! self-gratification,
a trophy case crammed with coin,
heads (metaphorical and otherwise),
ivory trinkets carved of banned tusk,
Likes, notches on the bedpost
(that shows my age!) Firepower!
The rich give, but not without accolades,
plaques for display and….receipts.
Nature demands self-interest
if we are to survive, but studies show:
the poor give more than the rich;
percentage wise, of course!
(that could be Fake News)
One thing to me, another thing to you.
What of a heart soothed by Riches lure
more than thanks of those in need?
Perhaps, I am too quick to call it greed;
one thing to me, another thing to you.
The leaves are gone. Wind rejoices in Their leaving for their dance betrays; Painting hints of body on his shame. Shoulders cringe under iced breath ravaging this frigid, emptying street. Chimes to the right sing winds intent, To flee this memory, falling behind, To allow us to lie in a contrived bliss Like those wreaths on those graves.
The leaves are gone. Wind rejoiced in their leaving for their dance betrayed: painting hints of body on his shame. A witness of this carnage, he whirled in helplessness, sharing horrid chaos with us despite our hands over our ears. Shoulders cringe beneath iced-breath ravaging this frigid, manicured yard. Chimes to the right sing winds intent to flee this memory, fall far away, to lie in a contrived complacency like these plastic wreaths on these graves.
This is an old poem, thought lost, but recently recovered. A real memory.
Haibun: Bobcat On The Cartercay
Drifting on a jade current slow as this August day; the erratic clunk of oar-gunnel collide complements mosquito’s whine and only a raucous call of Dryocopus pileatus startles me back from my innocuous memory glide. My fingers, trailing through the cool water, paint splendid, ephemeral works of art. Verdant spillings of laurel, fern, jeweled weeds and clinging vines tumbling from tracked banks, glossy with malodorous mud, narrow and crook my creek canvas. Around a turn so slight and he is there; we both, mid-creek, suddenly aware and he, swinging around, retraces his eddying path. Reaching the right bank, he emerges with a rippling shake and his stare follows me ….me, staring with wonder, drifting by, while his eyes, softly intent, expressed no surprise, no reproach I can discern. None at all. Now turning, unhurriedly….one step….two….into the dappled green tangle and he is gone…..like a thought lost; his image in my mind instantly vague, generic… swirling by.
obliviously
intended prey a drake bobs
summer’s shallow shade
Drifting on a jade current slow
as the August day..…. the erratic
clunk of oar/gunnel collide
complemented mosquito whine
and only the raucous call of
Dryocopus pileatus startled me
from an innocuous memory glide.
Verdant spillings of laurel, fern,
jeweled weeds and clinging vines
narrowed the creek from tracked banks
glossy with malodorous mud.
Around a turn so slight and he was there;
we both, mid-creek, suddenly aware….and
swinging around, he reached the right bank
emerging with a shake; his stare, void
of any emotion I could discern,
followed me ….me staring with wonder.
His eyes, softly intent, expressed no reproach.
Then turning, unhurriedly….one step
….two….into the dappled tangle,
he was gone…..like a thought lost;
his image instantly vague and generic.
A drake, his intended prey,
bobbed the left shallows obliviously.
Belated Words 