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The Mirror (Poem)
look across the span of time
back at the child you think you were
a memory that walks beside you
a song you heard sung every day
a breakfast you ate each morning
there was a boy, a girl, a youth once
a song and a favored food
how do you know that one was you
how do you know what happened
you have never seen your own face
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For L In These Early Days (Poem)
your heart, so full of love, so full of grief
cannot prepare for absence
will not allow to you to sit at the table
alone and say, she will not sit here again
it insists that this cannot be so, this void
looks away determined that she waits
one footstep away from entering the room
and if only you look at just the right moment
she’ll walk in to pull out her chair
the fullness of this daily act so simple, so dear
that without it, the silence swallows all
still you hear your overflowing heart, your stubborn heart
crack and crack and crack
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Can You Be Happy In The Rain? (Poem)
not the light mist that conjures rainbows
not the dancing shower that spaces the drops
but the hard rain that buckets from gray clouds
so that a creek flows over your boots in the street
the wind gusts water through any attempted cover
you arrive home clothes heavy with water
hair wetted to your head glasses useless from fog and smear
then there are these
a gardener rejoicing over his drenched hay
hay that is filled with thirsty seeds
a new owner’s excitement over his pizza
with imported flour, cheese, and imaginative flair
the glances on the sidewalk between hurrying strangers
momentarily connected by sodden condition
my several mishaps have been greatly outweighed
I was happy in the rain
