Posts for June 27, 2026 (page 5)

You were at that golden age,
perched between infancy and all that adulthood,
before the world stopped resetting every night
when you closed your eyes and drifted away,
opening them to a new world like a new day.
You loved to pull my braids
and we would throw our arms around each other
and around the neck of the dog who guarded our gates.
I did not understand that you were not my job. 
Like our dog and his drooling jowls
I stood between you and danger. 
But you were fearless,
falling down mountain sides
and climbing up the highest trees,
and there was nothing I could do
and nothing ever stopped you
and I couldn’t follow. 
All my fear I molded into my own armor.
And I am safe
and you are spectacular.

What is worse, to look out 

I sit with intention,
quiet my mind, close my eyes,
and wish for fractured light
to splinter the grey.

Instead, Hilma af Klint’s abstract
prisms appear. The colors asked for—
but not what I sought to find
until I open my eyes and look

to the gardens below:
the wind rustles the flowers
into an Isadora dance.
Finally, I dance too.

The silver-struck
   Piano plays
A lonely melody
   As it tries
To capture
   The Moon’s
Very first,
   First Quarter,    
Partial-pale song,
   Filling midnight air—
But empty space
   Breaks Piano’s heart
It’s alone
   Up there—
But so, too,
   Is Piano.
It cannot capture
   the song in
the lonely, quiet dark

brave Trumpet
  then plays in turn
    calling out into
       that lonely, quiet dark
          cutting through
           that empty space
            in a brazen golden arc
             heroic in its mission
             to befriend somber Piano
             knowing that they’re both
            alone in a tuneless world
           then Trumpet stops
         then listens to the
       unyielding abyss
    for any signs
of connection

Piano stirs
   From its
Mournful solitude
    And returns
The gesture
    That there
Is hope

Trumpet 
   cries out
     with eternal
      excitement
      and vibrates
     in tremendous,
   newfound
joy

Piano knows
   Just what
To say
   “In Friendship
We are mighty.”

Trumpet
   says,
     “in
      friendship
     i am—”

“No,
   No,”
Says
   Piano.
“In Friendship
    We are mighty.”

Trumpet
  Repeats,
    “in
     friendship
    we
  are
mighty!”

In    their
   Music they 
Have   learned
   To             work
Together, together
   Piano & Trumpet
Now                    play
   With         consoled,
Rekindled        hearts
   And                   with
A                           goal
   To                     sing
The               Moon’s
   Very             first,
First       quarter,
    Partial-pale, 
Silver song,
   As one
Voice

He said the thing 
that annoyed him 
most was when 
I used the word “but”

Perfectly fine word, 
I argued, wanting 
to add more, but
though it would be 
tricky 
without the–
you know

Few have 
made me more
self-conscious than
this man, but yet
I learned 
to communicate
without my–
you know

Now that I’m older,
and more confident,
I am claiming my 
right you use
my “but”
any time or place
of my choosing

I feel good about
my progress–
I wish I could
stick my “but”
in his face, but
he is long gone–

I suspect he
remains a serial
“but” grabber
wherever 
he goes

Sat cross legged on the floor in a Barnes and Noble
Squarely in front of the psychology section
They have the ADHD books sitting under “personality disorder”
I’ll deal with those feelings later

I’m looking for something to guide me
I’m not sure through what
The grief books teach you how to move
The five stages
Divorced at 27
Therapized for a decade
Nothing new to see here

On death and dying
On grief and grieving
A compendium of hospice nurse retellings
None of this is what I’m needing 

What the fuck is this feeling?
For what, God, am I searching

I think I’m looking for you on this shelf

And for Nada

And for Nathan 

For answer on how to stop the losing
How to stop the knowing
I want to stop the knowing
I’ll live out most of my years without the people I hold most dear

duel with canvas 

This morning I washed the last  
of the winter sweaters, laid them   

flat to dry in the sun. One, my mother 
made for me when I was a 6th grader—  

always making things big enough 
for us to grow into. Over six decades ago 
 
I chose pattern and colors 
with her and even today wouldn’t  

change a thing. Next to it, a vest  
I made my younger son, scrimping  

bits of yarn—the reason his sweaters 
tended toward stripes. His sons   

now wear the vest—warm wool 
and buttons to challenge toddler  
 
dexterity. How unlike life 
are the paper patterns we followed—  

rows marching single file, their future 
laid plain from beginning to end.  

My mother, though, didn’t live  
to the end of her row and couldn’t  

have imagined I’d dry her knits 
and purls with mine under this  

Kentucky sun. I touch the clean yarn, 
still moist, and consider life’s  

finite rows. Might mine end 
before next winter or will I be  

charmed with another chance 
to warm this aging body   

with the love plied into the wool 
of my 6th-grade sweater? 

                                                            (Silliness for a grey day)

Oh, mischievous bawd of words
Silk-shaggy fragments            
Nocturnally-curious phrases  
Snuffling apothegms  

I have shepherded over the year
Clucking and snorting your importance
But never quite fitting any poetic pasture  

Wild doodles of glory                                         
Scribbled in the margins of my life
Like some lost love letter to Elvis  

Shoved aside like expired sauerkraut
Left to stew in the raw juices
Of your own making  

Corralled in the nethers of some closet
Hobnobbing with bent wire hangers
Dust balls hosted by spiders  

But it’s June
And I’ve opened your giddy gates           

Look both ways
Before crossing the page
Head home
When the streetlights come on      

*No critters were harmed during this writing, and I apologize for any mess they might leave on your lawn.            

buzz after downpour.
Soar patterns on hillside green
before the next swarm.