A house still stands near the place you crashed but it creaksand it leans -paint peels, eerie white lights twinkle within.People ran out ona moonless night, whenyou struck the combine cutter barbroken off too close to the shoulder.The road you’d traveledfor 70 years offered no signtrusting, it does, local driverslook out for themselves.And farmers too, … Continue reading Whistling Your Way Home
Stranger Things
Uncle Joe had a photographic memory. Things like birth and death dates hung like jewels on the many-branched family tree he tended. In random conversation with those among us still living, people and their dates were important to him as were their places. His mind held a map of world facts & histories, wars … Continue reading Stranger Things
Interment Review
The small cardboard box, collaged artfully by a niece -enclosed the last of Joe, his large bones crushed to ash. Words spoken by his sister, his nephew, reflected on his keen memory for dates and places, travel, family history, and his love and insistence for piping hot coffee. Under the oaks and next to his … Continue reading Interment Review
Duplex (day 27)
These rooms house ghosts and memory They whisper welcome, please remember me. Remembering, imperfectly, it seems Little mothers, tall fathers, the lights they burn at night Tall mothers, slighter fathers who read by candle light Hoe a garden - dream in poetry Dreaming poetry, garden tender Whose hands have shaped and shape of me. Whose … Continue reading Duplex (day 27)
Bread Years
“Life is short. Eat bread.” her message, delivered at her funeral, duly noted. Well before that, I learned to knead with love, nurture life in the great big bowl, converse with the elements: yeast, salt, water, flour, which spoke back in whispers “ahhh, thank you, this touch this touch, as we live and breathe, our … Continue reading Bread Years
Day 15 When We Read
She changes positions in a blue club chair front facing forward, feet perched on a small ottoman next thing, shoes kicked off, legs curl underneath her, knees point first to one side, then the other, her slim ankles, her rough heels exposed. The book is in one hand raised to catch the window light, her … Continue reading Day 15 When We Read
day 8 Chuck
I admit it, still bitter about the baseball cut. The Minors were my way out and signs and coaches and sweethearts all liked my chances. I was small but had a damned hell lot of grit and fast, man oh man, I could run down those bases, throw far and catch with the sun in … Continue reading day 8 Chuck
May 30 Elemental
Elemental My cousin was burned in the corner of his garage, fooling around with matches near the gas can when he was 8. It happened the same year when another cousin on the other side of the family died in a garage fire at their Florida home. That boy was a baby. The news crackled … Continue reading May 30 Elemental
Early Morning Poems 