There’s an emptiness that enters
you when your last
parent dies.
You are no longer
daughter, son, no longer
the name
that has defined you.
Even the memories
of the bedroom
you slept in when you were six,
with its wallpaper of purple
chickens
and violet hearts, fades, twists
itself into something
that never was.
I love you
Unconditionally
Because of who you are to me
be it family, friend, love
I can always do better,
showing my heart
I want to turn off the noise of the world
and just think with my heart
When judgement attacks from other angles,
I want to be love
show love
and pour out love
I know this kind of love
I want to “love one another”
the way I am loved
Before its grand dip
into the Licking Valley
on the upland part
of the path to the river,
an observation hut
beckons the Whitman walker
to observe a supple wood.
The structure’s old lumber
slowly losing its configuration,
its disjointed view of nature
through a narrow slit
of time and space that enhances
the bustle of birdlife in the air,
its moss-covered bench
and last year’s leaves
bunched up at the baseboard,
require the stillness of death
to hush the firings of his wires.
One has worked all of a life
to come this way and stop
to feel the scratch
of maple branch
on the old hut’s back wall:
Oh! Tis an announcement
of a breeze that’s rolled up
from some deep hollow
to bless his short stay
with the cool whisper
of the water from below
In my almost dream
I was a green plant
still nestling underground
in safe darkness
not quite ready to emerge
needing just a little more time
crouching quietly, cocooning,
conserving forces to bud forth
ready to greet the broad vast sky.
Cardinal
in his bright rags
lands on the deck railing
to tweet for food
and his conning of me
will win
again.
Winding down a curvy gravel road
of Gatlinburg,
my adult daughter asked,
“Why doesn’t Daddy wear a wedding ring?”
Never liked jewelry he said when we
got mine. He pointed to his heart
and said his love lived there
not on his finger.
My dad never had one either
only wore his 1949 Penn State
rubyesque class ring for their 50 years.
Sauntering inside a silver craft jewelry
shop our convo continued.
Ringless the counter man was prey.
“Excuse me are you married?” I asked.
Deer in the headlights look but speechless.
Like a flash , a woman appeared from
yonder counter shouting ” Yes, he’s married!
Why do you ask?”
Startled I recounted our conversation.
“He lost his but is getting another!”
Poor man never got to speak.
In the car my daughter laughed,
“Mom, you got that man into deep shit!
A ring will be on his finger by noon!”
I bite into a fresh
orange segment. A flood
of tart juice surges
over my tongue. Taste buds
spasm. I cringe, squeeze
my eyes shut, wait
for a wash of sweetness
I hope will follow.
If there is a way to lessen
that initial jolt, please
tell me now. Just because
I can free
citrusy fragrance
with the first prick
of my knife, just because
I have mastered the trick
of removing the peel
in one long sinuous curl,
does not mean
I am somehow prepared
for the coming sting
of such hunger.
i could be panther scrounging night
on vigilant prowl for your poem,
roll vowels like rabbits’ eyes
around my salt tongue,
scan, in the vast meadow
of the Milky Way,
an unwary metaphor
to sate my hunger,
to express this,
to make sense of it.
a symbol stirs.
my pupils dilate, huge
to contain oceans,
lounging
in the tree is prey –
I spring, increasing
for the pounce –
it slithers out.
again i miss.
again i miss.
the harsh consonant crow
breaks silent dark to day,
i slouch to sleep in deep shade.
