A doe fawned in the stallion paddock.
He wasn’t there when it happened,
munching on sweet feed from his
adorned stable block.

His groom, who knew his every quirk
clipped the gold chain he didn’t need,
around his square jaw and walked
quietly beside him to the green painted gate.

They navigated the obstacle smoothly,
as they had for fifteen years.
They played the game of chicken,
as the had for fifteen years, until

The gold chain slid from his halter and
he bolted on age’d legs.
a colt for just a moment, until
from the grass, a flush of color catapults

the smallest limbs to standing.
now nostrils are flared
and ears are pricked to attention
and the mass of a stallion is

sidling up to the earthy freshness of a fawn.
his head lowered to take in the sight,
and he is capable of grand gentleness
with a creature who benefits him none.

and he reminds us, though one is
built for strength and unpredictability
and maybe his forebears would’ve
chose otherwise, he can be kind.

Sometimes I feel lost in the waves
I fight and kick for the air I crave
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle hand takes hold of me

Sometimes I feel I’m burning bright 
Searing hot and enraged in fight
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle voice speaks to me

Sometimes I feel the cold of doom
Thoughts of leaving for that tomb
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle mind there distracting me

Sometimes I feel I talk to the storm
No one hears the words I form
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle ear is lent to me

Sometimes I feel I’m in the dark
Moving unseen is very stark
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle eye is spared for me

Sometimes I feel so very down
I hang my head, blue all around
But just before I’m overwhelmed
A gentle soul embraces me

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed
But gently, always, I’m returned

(Title from John O’Donohue’s “The Inner History of a Day”)  

day’s hours broken into moments 
moments of puzzled yet trustful wonder 
wonder at each grounded wind-plucked leaf 
leaves born of trees communing root to root 
roots that lift soil’s ever-full cup 
cup to quench every precious moment 

Sometime I will tell you about my father’s drinking,
how he’d sleep one off in the recliner while surrounded 
by family gathered to watch The Wonderful World of Disney. 

I’ll draw metaphor from the car wrecks,
the embarrassing episodes with comely waitresses,
the little league games he showed up to lit,

but fail to mention the stacks of dishes done,
recitals attended without complaint, 
gloss over the tie around the neck 

pulled tight, the late hours keeping a roof overhead,
failed dream of being a fighter pilot giving Charlie heck,
how he blubbered at the end of Brian’s Song,

or his last words in this life — I’m doing the best I can —
whispered through shallow, desperate breaths,
shining an honest light on my duplicitous shadow.

Mushrooms rising after rain like punctuation marks,
like a thought the earth has finished.

Beneath the dirt’s dark shrug.
A thousand white threads.

Like the wisdom of white hair
and its thousand stories.

Sugar travels from one tree to another.

Nutrients exchanged.
Warnings passing underground.

The dying feeding the living.
The living feeding the dying.

In the dark, in the damp,
the dirt is quietly helping.

The dirt always helping.

Holding roots.
Holding water.

Holding entire histories.

Maple leaf becoming soil.
Tree becoming forest.

A fallen log softens into sponge.
A mushroom pushes through.

The white threads persist.

Have we ever left the garden?

a newborn baby
a marathon runner
a singer
a yoga instructor
a boxer
a person carrying groceries up six flights of stairs
a freediver
a plane crash survivor
a patient waiting for test results
a bride
a sniper
an astronaut
a flute player
a dragon slayer
a surgeon stitching an artery
a bomb disposal technician
an actor before the curtain rises
everyone in the elevator when it suddenly stops
a parent lying next to their a feverish child
a list of all know
the art of breathing can be hard to master

                                                                                      I        were
                                            the threshold of 

                       her face,
                           her      waist,                 her     hand,
       her
                                                                fingernail
                                      a        curving point

                                                      turned
                                         to

                                                    me.
                                              This gave me hope.

                                             There’s always something that can
be exchanged.       She        was a woman who might

                                                             long       for me,
          the      forbidden.                                 

~ An erasure of page 14 in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale

Clock takes the day off                     
The bed     its scented linger
A pomp of poems  

We use the side door off the driveway
walk through an always standing open gate
trees flank the rusty chain link fence
a staircase leading to the second floor greets us
to the left, there’s an old kitchen barely big enough
for a stove and refrigerator.

The house is heated with coal
delivered and dumped near the window
Dad shovels it into the basement and feeds the old furnace
heat rises, keeping the first floor warm, not the second
each bedroom has tall, wood-paned, drafty windows with a scenic view
sometimes there are these creepy worm like critters
and mice at the foot of my bed.

Flowering pear trees and a clothesline grace the back yard 
Mom must have chosen this house
seeking her childhood-country life
tired of living on Air Force bases
Dad drives an hour to the base each day.

We are the new kids in a one room country school
me, in the sixth, my brother in the fourth
there was teasing going on
it is discussed at dinner
Mom’s hot having it
as dusk settles in
we see lights from the ’55 VW bus pass the window
she turns up the county road towards our teacher’s home
not long she returns
there is no more teasing.

old piano
stacked with magazines
and dust
how he would get drunk
play and sing, “I did it my way”

at his funeral 
no one even mentioned 
D-Day
unspoken legacy
… of pain