The dogs sleep in balls
tightly curled next to my chair.
Roses bloom outside.
(April 3, 2026)
Category: retirement
-
I’m Okay Now
by
aging, change, gratitude, happiness, life, perspective, poetry, present, retirement, teaching, time, transition, writing
three years ago
at sixty-three
after thirty-four years
I stopped teaching
I stopped takinganti-depressants
stopped drinking
as much
the night terrorsthough not stopped
are less frequent
and less frantic
I am not somebodyout of a capra film
nor a famous nobody
listening to frogs sing
I am me— an old manwho still loves lisa
and writes little poems
few people will read
(March 16, 2026)
-
inevitable
by
I make our dinner—
noodles with snow peas and shrimp.
She is not hungry.
We have forgottenhow many times we’ve been here.
Decades of hope lost.
Another year ends—Our pensions are still enough;
the night darkly falls.
We drink to forget—Tonight we dance a circle;
again, we are here.
Again, day falls into night.Life is inevitable.
(New Year’s Eve, 2025)
-
Overtime I’ve noticed
I prefer more stability
as I move through a room.
I enjoy a slow movement
across familiar territory.
Never having a dancer’s grace,
I stumble on the slightest shadow
like a drunk down a dark stair.
Although my words plod on
clumsily shod feet, and I have
little surprise in my speech,
I am content, in my way,
with my pedestrian pace
to take my leave home.
(August 12, 2025)
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Teleological
by
All day the sky lurks darkly:
low, grey, thick with rain.
Across the back garden,
a mourning dove’s arc
becomes itself wholly
in a violent flutter
of feathers and leaves
as it finally drops
deep within the oak’s
dark twisted branches.
I have so many taskswhich take little time;
yet, I do not move.
I’m already here.
(July 18, 2025)
-
time fills the day with nothing
but pre-occupations
something planned randomly
to give an appearance of order
for the orderly to follow before
time runs out leaving no time
for what could have been done instead:
a slow walk about the garden for example
(April 12, 2025) -
Our two dogs scuffle loudly at my feet.
Curtains flutter in the window near me.
The afternoon has suddenly grown late.
I do not like the book I am reading,
I put it down and pick up another.
It is one I’ve read before: poetry,
so it’s like I’ve never read it at all.
“the mind and the poem are all apiece”
A few weeks later than they did last year,the roses have begun to bloom again.
Though, perhaps not, my memory follows
its own soft path through the rooms of the house.
The dogs with their play tussle forgotten
curl in the corner upon each other.
(April 1, 2025)
-
Jiggers of time measured out:
a mixture of meals, dog walks,
and predictably mundane
intrusive thoughts. Skoal!
(November 15, 2024)
-
I used to say I taught nothing:
we read; we wrote; the practice,
the process— the means not the end.
Now closer to my end, I still sayI do nothing, though busy all day
with nothing but this or that.
(March 7, 2024)
-
Outside in a bare tree,
the wind chime rings softly
in the cool northern breeze.
The old mantle clock chimes
the approximate hour
slowing a tad each day
if left to its own wiles.
I forget what day it is
and must remind myself
in order to keep up—
since friends and family
grow concerned when I fall
out of sync with their world.
The new puppy runs wild
across the back yard
patrolling the fence line
for oblivious squirrels
while the older dog basks
in the afternoon sun.
(January 31, 2024)
-
bare branches lace the grey sky to the ground
as the rain continues into the day
again I wait in a doctor’s office
an event more often than not these days
but what can I say I’m no longer young
outside people drive to work through the rain
I still rise long before the sun rises
as I did for the last thirty-four years
I take naps now instead of commuting
I like that I have nothing much to do
that must be done on someone else’s time
my day’s filled with dogs and poetry
both of which provide a steady rhythm
more suited to the beating of my heart
(January 26, 2024)
-
1- Tao
once
there were two
which begat a third
then sprunga myriad
to flourish the world
2- Patience
finally
i become
the contours
of the changemy life has
left me to
desert windthrough rocks
as rain upon
old gravestonesgrinds time back
to nothing
(December 19, 2023)
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