Life, she said, is all about
finding purpose not things.
It was hard to argue with her,
as she overwhelmed with examples.
Rice filling a small bowl
holds an incense stick up
and catches the ashes
as they fall quietly down..
A cracked plate can sit
under a plant, catching
any overflow from its
careful daily watering.
And old fleece jacket can
be desleeved and become
the cat’s new favorite bed,
moved around for novelty.
He always wondered how
she would repurpose him
when the time came.
Of course when we lived
up north we wouldn’t
have imagined this, sitting
on our lanai watching the sun
set the patchy sky ablaze
sipping small glasses of port
and wondering if a light
jacket might be in order,
as the beaver moon
of November waxes slowly.
The cat, curled at our feet
cannot imagine the icy wind
howling down the street,
the foreboding clouds offering
their first flakes, knowing
this is a small taste of what
nature will bring forth
before we could again sit
in shirtsleeves on our porch.
Platform shoes, velour
Nehru jackets, what the hell
were we thinking, and pink
velour, seriously, for men.
At least it was Hendrix, Byrds,
and not Pat Boone and Andy
Williams, almost the death
of music as we know it.
Reefers were evil, told us so,
and when we figured out it was
pot, we begged to differ, frequently
between hits on the bong,
after all joints required a certain
amount of dexterity in the rolling
and tjat progressively slipped away
with the afternoon sun.
Now it’s chardonnay and pinot
and a good reposado or anejo,
or a blanco if company appears
and triple sec then, never Cointreau.
As a child, I could never
understand why, when I knew
that it ws time to go, my parents
were never ready, always needed
one or two more things; and why
en route, we were never quite there
even though I had waited the ten
minutes more they said it would take.
But I had nothing on my beloved
dog Mindy, who would stand
by the back door, leash in moth
and growl, wondering, no doubt
why I always need more time,
it wasn’t, she was certain,
because shoes were necessary,
or a rain jacket, she got by
just fine without them, and
why my last bathroom stop had
to take precedence over hers would
always be beyond comprehension.
The river ignores us
for yet another day,
flowing despite our presence,
knowing the lake awaits.
As the rain lets up,
the sun appears
and sets the water ablaze
demanding our attention
and we gladly give it.
As our jacket shed
the last of the cloudy gifts,
the wind reminds us
that this moment
is one we will not
ever see again.
an old writer and his words 