i imagine you
lying in the grass, asleep.
wake up, son!
                                                 you don’t.

Old servants of my infancy pressing wine and fishing
with the doors of the bodegas rushing wide to the beach,
my fastest friends,
grinning faithful dogs,
gifted gardeners,
coachmen,
poor steersmen at port,
tired marching from today to the hour
to lift your feet anew into a new era of the world,
I deliver my greetings
and call you comrades.
Come with me, 
rise,
ancient and first guardians, the disappeared.
You hear not the voice of my grandfather,
nor the authority, nor the dominion.
Do you remember me?
Tell me.
Older now, much older now.
I am witness to thirty years of your servitude.
This is my voice. 
Yes.
Mine,
the one who calls to you.
Come.

And not to nag you to feed and water my canaries,
goldfinches, or budgies; 
not to rail at you that my prized stallion’s hooves are destroyed 
or that I’m telling my parents you neglected to pick me up 
at school in the afternoon.
Not anymore.

Come with me brothers.
Let us open,
open all the doors leading to the gardens,
to the rooms you swept, afraid to disturb my mother’s porcelain,
to a barrel of wine you personally pressed,
stepping back to the lost orchard gates,
where dark horses are stabled to change your fortune.
All is open, all is open, sit yourselves down.
Rest.

Good morning!
Your very children,
your blood,
have made at last a ringing bell this hour that the world
will change owners.

Author:  Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi

I write you again 
a pleading voice.
like a lover ghosted,
left on read, 
forgotten.

I beg To see you again. 
It shouldn’t be that hard my friends say 
it should be easy. 

yet I find myself searching 
unsure how to reach 
you. 

you are a deep memory 
a version of me I forget being 

looking inside myself does nothing 
looking for answers only causes confusion 

some say we are meant to change. 

Others stand and question where the “old you” went. 

I want to tell them 
she is still here 
she is me 
dwelling quietly 
she just doesn’t fit in with the new version of me. 

Raccoon
possum

some other
night critter

tries to
sneak past

my open
window. 

Crunch, crunch.
Dead leaves

betray their
presence. 

Had too much to drink.
The tree frogs song, 
a night time tinnitus inside My brain.
Breeze on my skin feels like your fingers

Wind chimes
C
      D
            E

Night spinning, eyelids drooping,
anchor heavy arms and legs.

I miss you

The children of the forest, once wild and free,
Were driven out by industry and man
But there are still a few of us left
Here in these hills and hollers
Barefoot and unworried
About progress and
Passage of time
You’ll find us
If you look
Real hard

Adolescent ducks 
scrounge for scraps, tussling
over half-eaten crusts that rain
from grubby hands like manna
from above, a never-ending feast.

haiku: the wind

i am so grateful
that I feel you in the wind.
but it’s not enough.

After a haircut, I feel like a shorn lamb.
Air on the nape of my neck
and I’m trying to be positive again. 

I’m old enough now to have places I go
regular enough, people who know my face.

The clouds swing down and stay there
most of the day. The rain has driven
the birds from the oak. But it’s drying. 

Driving home in the dark after an evening
watching the kids’ theatre camp play,
my son says he’s going to fall asleep.

“Just hold on. We’re almost home,”I say,
“I can’t carry you in anymore.”

“Yeah, it’s just part of growing up,” he replies.

“I remember pretending to be asleep,
so I could get carried to bed,” my daughter adds.

“Those were the days,” sighs my son.

I grip my steering wheel and nod to the night.