What's ahead

The old warned us there’s deprivation

up ahead 

that worsens with time.

Parents, pets, friends--all we love--

carried away

and our own sweet bodies 

a shock in the mirror.

They did not mention a sunset on the Bay 

could bring more peace than a

striving young heart 

could know 

just by placing one foot after the other

along the pebbled beach,

my friend laughing beside me;

a picnic of lamb chops and mango waiting 

in my backpack for a shady spot. 

Everything needed provided.

But on this sunset my friend turns her face 

from the glow and says,

 I‘ve got 15 summers left, 

if i'm lucky. 

So she plans her summers with care now.  

Each a precious stone kept safe from thieves.

I was angry at my mother for not coming

that month I lay pinned to a hospital bed.

But how could I know it was her last summer?

A summer of curated movements. 

I wish I had not argued with my man that June 

he tripped on the sidewalk 

when it took precious summer days to heal. 

We did not know it was his last June. 

How could we have known that in October 

the sun would set at six and not rise again?

One by one they walked out of this house—

or were carried out. 

The oldest daughter, then her sister, brother

my mother,  

……..my husband, my dear, my man, my angel.

And now the final leaving--our boy's packing   

and this house enlarges as with every departure.  

It's a castle now: ceilings sky high, hallway 

a cavern--the whole place a relic, 

unsound and useless. 

Selfie

If only I could live wide awake, 

every moment clear between these

ears and eyes.

So time would quiet down, 

so it would move slowly on hands and knees. 

If tasks, news, many silly things

did not hold me in a drowsy  trance

where time zip-lines away

so it is always the  past.

 

How to keep this mind tuned 

to the shapes of clouds, 

to the skunks that nibble from the cat’s bowl, 

the struggling camilla, 

chimes I hung above it

and after read a poem out loud 

about why there’s nothing to be sad about 

then write another about the worm

glistening on the deck 

and mention all the things I'm grateful for

and so turn time into my own loving friend 

 rather than this foe

who steals all I love. 

Acrobatics

A machine keeps him alive 

now that his kidneys can't

and he endures this 

without a mother 

(She would have nursed him 

like no other). 

He has only me, wife, and the machine, 

both second best but we keep him going

on this tightrope, we keep him swinging,

rebounding—we keep life on its tip toes.

On his bad days, I tell him:

Just look at the weeds shooting up from the patio 

pushing through the odds.

Look how the blind bats catch a meal 

in the pitch of night, 

how the mushroom explodes overnight 

in the junk yard.

Life abides. He likes to hear this.

So I repeat: Life goes on by the grace 

of some generous force.

It stages comebacks, abandons reason,

and drags on stubbornly, 

flying in the teeth of it all.