Ghosts of Fairmont Ridge Trail

Just beyond the Eucalyptus trees lined up

Like chorus girls with skinny arms

Holding out their skirts

The bench beckons.

A name’s carved in the wood and a title--

“lover of dogs, dancing and sunsets.”

I enjoy the company of ghosts

And talk to this one lightly: 

Did you look at the hills to the south

And think of pyramids?

Did the sky seem painted with a sponge?

The fog veils the trees, a shroud deep

with ghosts on an evening stroll.

The lover of dogs, dancing and sunsets

drifts in that mist beside me--I feel

A change in gravity.

To every question, she answers, yes---

Yes everything stays a mystery

even after death, 
yes, I'd rather feel the breeze
than be it---and always her voice
sounds much like my own.

The Better End

Pity her

whose mind

can’t flee 

the hospital

bed and 

ends there

pinned

like a bug 

beneath 

a bulb.

Envy her 

who sees

clouds 

of geese

swoop

above a lake

before 

her eyes

roll back.

A Good Mood!

If the sky were any bluer,

If my love for self much truer

If my needs were any fewer

If this moment would divide

I couldn't keep my heart inside.

Here’s a cliff above the sea

And I am on it! 

With adequate health

and adequate wealth 

and time on my hands to enjoy it.

The surf’s all sound and I’m all ear,

my life’s not perfect but this will do!

A beautiful dream that will not last

But that doesn’t spoil my view.

So this for sure I must remember 

On the day timed as my last:

Many days were lost to memory

but some like this surpass! 

Another Day

Another day slips away

into the stream 

from now to then.

On and on
the seconds flow

with little notice 
and much that’s noticed
only barely so

and even less 
remembered
and what’s
remembered

hardly fills 
a spoon and 

much of that 
regretted or

reframed 
and some

relived 
second by second. 

And so 
another day 

just slips 
away. 

The Sink

Their eyes look blank

as buttons.
They've given up.

Except one
whose eye seems

hooked on me.

Dad carves a knife,

pours oil in the pan.

Poor little beings

pumping hard 

to catch a breath.

I'm pushed aside.

I hear a whack.

Flesh deep frying
but poor little Button

is pounding harder

against the sink.

Eat! dad orders.

But I just can't,
not with Buttons
pounding ever harder

against the sink.

Puberty

My hair in the bathroom mirror 

looks longer, much

darker, sun-touched. 

Can it do that overnight? 

It sways when I cock my head

to observe my nose

--a little slope to ski on--

Some man some day will moan.

I’ve seen this face before

in magazines, on film.

The beacon eyes and blooming lips 

and cheeks as red as beets. 

But that face is mine--

unwashed, unpainted--

no subterfuge at all. 

And I’m a child, 
she’s woman!

How can this be?

I can't take my eyes off me.  

If it is me.