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.

The generals

 The generals say 200,000 soldiers 

died, as many have been wounded.

He does not say how he counted 

100,000 twice 

or how sure he is the dead 

and partial dead 

are evenly divided between 

Russia & Ukraine.   

He says Autumn has turned 

the solid ground to mud so tanks 

with sons and lovers all will sink & 

that makes further slaughter 

tough.  

This seems the time to call a truce 

but the generals want their sides

to hunker down 

and wait for earth to freeze 

and then begin to kill again, 

with much more ease.  

He never lets out a wish, a sigh

for peace, the peace of doves drifting 

to the ground. 

If it were me, I‘d  ask for that—

a quiet season for those still living 

men and boys.

I would send them home to autumn 

on their lawns of gold.  

I wonder if the fighters love their lives

as much as I love mine—I would never choose 

death in any season, 

most especially not in the Zen 

of Autumn skies.    

The already dead —all 200,000 

known, loved, now wept for —

have made the low beds 

they now must sleep in.  

No recanting, too late to demand a truce—

tho if there were a God, they could.  

The sunken tanks as useless as their bones

and TV viewers who cheer the generals on

will never have to see teeth gleaming in the mud 

under an autumn sky made hellish 

red with death,  

A pair

A pair of fancy sneakers

can make a boy of 12 float up 

into the clouds & feel the outstretched arms

of screaming fans.  

None of the other kids I raised 

complained about Payless shoes 

but this last child would rather walk barefoot

across a live power line.  

So, because he’s very shy, 

because he pleads for a taste

of the world’s love, 

I agree to buy a pair of Jordans 

that cost more than 

the monthly payment 

for my Honda CRV.  

Then he wears them every day 

until the sole splits from the foxing.

You could say he fell in love 

with his shoes 

without which he would return 

to his old life 

as a ghost. 

The shoes make him real. 

They bless his life. 

Or something like that.  

But any moment now 

he’ll see the love the world gives 

won’t come this easily again.  

All who have sought it know 

the world’s passions wear thin. 

Thinner than the soles on his 

sneakered feet.  

.

Two old women

Here by the beach, two women

eat fish tacos 

at the next table

as the sun sets 

& the breeze plays with their hair.

 

They must be 85 but still dining out, 

still smiling, sipping. 

Whatever has aggrieved them, 

whatever has left 

their hearts blind or broken

has not destroyed them.  

 

Here they are, saying little

but feeling this earth just

enough to fill ne more page 

in their diary,

enough to knit one more poem 

with a morning latte, 

about how a stranger smiled at them

as they watched the sun

turn the sky blood-red and 

slide behind them. 

Marianne Williamson is running for president

 Marianne serves herself up on a half shell, raw and true.  

Proudly calloused

    from the last campaign, she makes 

    her grand return by noting

streets are littered with more bodies 

than cigarette butts.

By noting Americans want

     to live a normal life 

     yet feel the shade 

of ruin nearby. 

And so Marianne confronts the powerful

        and calls for mercy.  

     Marianne overcomes despair

with spiritual ideas 

like love 

      which the powerful dismiss 

      as beneath them. 

Marianne carves up their coldness 

      and swears that

      kindness can heal the cold-eyed 

exchange of money. 

To Marianne, the campaign is a crusade 

and the podium her pulpit 

      and politics is for all the people.

Marianne cries for the ways

    we have been abandoned

by the leaders. 

Their promises passed down 

      and around, 

like clothes in a washer. 

She says don’t believe things

they say that hurt you 

        but believe in something 

that will not hurt you. 

Marianne ought to rein supreme. 

But the party thinks not. 

They mock her.  

I dream of Marianne basking 

in the media-curated sunlight, 

        of the whole nation holding her ideas

in its palms. 

And Marianne saying, Thank you all 

     for coming, 

     for being  raw and true.  

      

For knowing all lives matter.  

Answers

 This shapeless blowing wind

      wide 

 and high—

so refreshing that

     the moment froze 

and then the rising, 

     falling 

wind began

     anew

across the desert 

of my skin 

     over the hills 

of my cheeks. 

Gentle currents

in glowing 

    shapes  

flowing silent 

     as fish

and then 

they hurry 

    over me—

a perfect moment, 

giving me this 

    answer 

to everything.