If you build it they will come.
And I did, not intentionally for him…
now them, but we never know how we
might be blessed by a cheap plastic pool
aslant In red clay hole, dug despite screaming,
deteriorating bone’s protest, now homing
lily pads teasing bloom and tadpole cloud;
a tinge of hope, of promise of life to come.
Ninety-nine years ago an instant of time was snapped.
click-click
A picture of a life just beginning preserved by caring;
April 1926, rural Alabama. Her birth certificate denotes,
in cursive, under Doctor-Midwife: Mrs. B. A midwife
or, who knows now, just by chance a caring neighbor?
Is that the birthing sheet hung to dry in the background?
click-click
See the slate-looking stones placed under the rockers and
the two pillows in dinge softness framing a newborn life;
daughter, sister, mother; an endless array of assignations.
See the leather covered seat... the rocker's an inside chair.
No flash bulbed cameras back then for poor farmer folks;
she had to be brought outside to face the sun...the glare
of life's beginnings. See her tiny fingers grasping, searching
for something to clutch, to squeeze...always...to cling to?
click-click
Funeral Processions; yes, I've followed a few; led two
in the second vehicle, the family car, after the Hearse.
Yesterday on the bypass on way to the nursing home
I fell behind another; a slow, near stalling motorcade;
multiple police blue lights flashing at crossroads,
extended parade of taillight's paying homage. Then,
exit to Glory Gardens' acres and acres of Departures;
the ridge cresting crypts; roadside hugging flat stones.
Was the honored one a past friend I had forgotten?
Past is the word noting my ascension into the Present,
in which I have chosen, requested of my son, a plot;
a boundless plot unmarked, his choosing, along a creek,
a wilderness home where a discreet casting of ashes
elicits only bird hymns and fern frond's silent prayers,
and an endless cleansing by the gurgling creek
and scents of flowing seasons to converse with me.
A Traveler
“She’s a Traveler, for sure.” Nurse sighed
through a tired, unpretentious smile.
“Gotta chase her down at times to give’er meds.
Other day tried to get in the mechanical room!
Course, it was locked... but you never can tell...
lord knows why she’s always wheeling around...
looking for somebody, probably you, or a way outta here.
Course, we all love’er; she's always sweet’n kind...
always saying Thanks Honey!, Hi! and such...
except at night sometimes when she screams
and calls for something we don’t understand...
yeah, she’s really a Traveler, a Searcher for sure."
in the end its just the end
no ascension no descension
no immortality no damnation
in the end there is no end
memory and maybe bone are gone
but never gone
all seeps and blends on and on
as bits and thoughts whirling as
clippings blooming in a thousand years
For weeks they came daily; grackles and
vultures swarming in plagues and kettles
descending to take, devour claimed food.
A scold of jays bitching from leafless trees
did nothing to deflect or deter the feedings.
Now they are gone; the migrant portions
of their species; the uneasy, the unsettled,
the searchers. For days by my windows I
stood entranced, aching to leave, to gorge;
imploring them to take me along to soar.
I remember a horrid infant: the creation of rabid men, a concoction of desires, ideas and secret process devoid of conscience. They thought the riddle was solved: The forfeiture of a fraction for the good of the whole. But the whole was demeaned; the part was not consumable and refused to lie in silence as mere charred bone.
Soybean rows paved the fields in tan shades
heralding by their dryness a nearing harvest;
a crop, a cycle, a promise of a fulfillment.
Lean, overalled, old man paces his fields;
squatting, testing multiple plants’ readiness.
A taciturn self can’t hide the bliss of Harvest.
A seventeen-year-old boy has harvested,
with, according to companions, “extreme
happiness,” a young, rare albino antelope.
Ask about the hunt, the harvester said,
“I‘m was so happy! I couldn’t git a breath!”
Culls blood runs thick-red over white hair.
“News! Breaking news! News just for you!
An illicit harvesting may have just occurred!
Apparently, the Harvester did not issue
any notifications prior to this culling and
states his intent was ‘totally eradicate, not
mere persecution, of those sordid, ethic beast!’”.
Days flow in incandescent, pollen-tinted light
moment by hour by millennium unstoppable;
sinuously hand in hand with time, their free arms
throw outward, chests pump to boast of being one
with the flow’s blasting bellow of life heard only
mutely by us, whispering under our constant din
of rants, proclamations and squeals of whiny ills.
As the river scrounges, ravishing, stealing
fish cavern walls from beneath its own banks
that hinder the flow it knows no purpose only
the god of movement’s flood. Stopping is death.
The mother oak by strength and massive reach
commands her hill only by chance and entrée
by tenacious grasp of Gaia’s breast sucking
the flow of mother’s milk. Her mammoth face
in breeze sings praise. The flow, not by beat,
but by constancy plays the melody of her song.
This is a slightly revised version of a poem originally posted in October 2012. I am slowly adding photos to each old post and, in a sense, reliving past memories and experiences; some sweet, some not so much.
Belated Words 