Just another day:
the children go off to school;
students are gunned down.
Category: children
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I let the dogs out to play
as someone knocks on the door.
The dogs run to protect me.
Our grown children have arrived,unannounced with warm pastries
stacked neatly in a white box.
They came over just to talk,and hang out. I make coffee;
they say they have some concerns.
The children tell me what’s wrongwith my life. They have a fresh
vision with a narrow view.
What can I do? They know morethan they did, but not enough
of the daily rituals
which have coalesced overtime;the compromises, and fears
one negotiates for love.
I’ve been there. My mom was old.I had a grasp on my life,
I thought. I wanted to help.
My tired hubris, like theirs, waitsfor the cold ironic turn,
when we’ll both know it’s too late.
For now, it’s much too early.I pour a cup of coffee,
and watch the dogs play outside.
They yip and nip through the weeds,tumbling in the back yard,
obliviously happy.
(March 12, 2024)
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(the magician, Aquarian)
to Isaac, age 6a wind chime hangs
in anticipation
beneath an arbora workbench arrayed
almost casuallywith a circular motion
he scoops balls of airinto the swirling clouds
like galaxies fleeingfrom each other
he flutters aboutafter each sparkly bit
all of the elementsall of the senses
all the myriad disciplinesswarm within and without
in an ever-expanding horizonwhich binds him in time
between the bluest skyand the spinning earth
(August 5, 2023)
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A poor response to terror— again,
to children slaughtered in their classroom—
And again, will we learn anything this time?
The politicians and news punditsgossip and chitter like crickets;
and nothing, again, nothing is done.
Here, a few hours distance to Uvalde,Black-eyed Susans and Horse Mint dance
to the wind, as if nothing changes.
Each time (so strangely common) I thinkof my students and the possible horror—
and pray (in my way) for redemption.
Tomorrow, my students will graduate,and head off to college— with the hope,
again, that they will change this world.
(May 30, 2022)
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The students used to be enough
of a balm—
their curiosity, their light.
Today the ephemera wears me:the pointless testing,
the political demagoguery.
It becomes harder to ignorethe razor thin insults,
the slow bleed.
This should be the end—yet inertia pushes me,
slouching towards another year.
(April 12, 2022)
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thanks to They Might Be Giants
“What’s a soul,
and how do you build a bird house
in it?”
My soul ached then,as he built a space
larger than the sky:
the bluest wonder widenedwithin, opening his nascent world
to dawn’s infinite chorus,
and I rose with the songto a dance
I had thought forgotten.
When did I lose such trustin the fragile
feathers of love?
(November 14, 2021) -
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (78)
after the worst of summer’s heat
we’d sit in the grass
beneath the pecan and cottonwoods
away from the radiant streets and sidewalks
the adults spoke of friends
far away or long dead
they’d laugh and tell stories
which we were not a part of yet
we ran wild through the night
afraid of nothing
(July 18, 2020)
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from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (49)
our lives changed
around him
the first born
.
that summer he turned one
I read dante and the moderns
for grad school
.
at night I’d rock him singing
row row row your boat
until he’d drift to sleep
.
now he has a child
and that summer
floats away into dream
.
like a mountain river
we happily crossed
splashing in the sun
(April 7 2020)
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from “Change,” a work in progress
Our government horrifies me,
and I feel powerless–
Each day I read and talk
with my students;
they exude such optimism
and hope, I’m humbled.
A slight breeze stirs
the oak leaves;
dawn breaks slowly
over all.
(January 25, 2019)
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One does not want to find
the body on the floor,
bits of brain and blood flecked
in patterns on the walls.
After decades scribbling
these poems to the page,
reading hundreds if not
thousands of others ,
apparently, I just needed you.
So, please, tell me, my child,
what my poetry means
to an ignorance like mine.
Keeping in mind, the reader
finds what he wants to find.
(May 16, 2018)
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in a few weeks it will be
forty years since we went out
for a banal movie and pizza—
forty years, college, a marriage;
three children grown,
and moved out mostly.
We are grandparents now.
Isaac toddles about the house
determinedly going where he goes,
as we follow behind bemused.
I think we worry too much
for the troubles we have. I am
aware they are there, as they are—
yet, so am I, and so are you.
(February 19, 2018)
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“Behold the time of the Assassins.”Arthur RimbaudIt is not that stories don’t matter, but they are not justified; the margins neatly matted. Each spring, as a child, the carnival would arrive in town for the fat stock show. The kids in the local 4-H and F.F.A would compete, trying to win best of show and scholarships from the cows, pigs, sheep, and goats they had loving raised over the year for slaughter. We ignored the poison in our veins. Instead we spun, and flipped, and screamed tightly to each other on the carnival rides, held safe in our laughter. The horrors lurked somewhere else, some other state, some other country’s small town. Someone else’s children burned in the magazines stacked securely on the living room floor. From a blue sky, the sun shone brightly upon the cottonwoods in the back yard. As neighbors leaned on rakes talking quietly to each other, the sounds of lawn sprinklers spritzed through the evening air.(July 8, 2016)
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