Life

May 20, 2023

COMMON UNDERSTANDING

It didn’t surprise him that he
quickly understood the cat
they adopted during the pandemic
for all he had to do was apply
basic feline logic, that everything
in her new home was either
hers or theirs collectively,
it was just that simple.
He had come from a place,
a life, where there had been
hers and theirs, simple.
When that life ended, as everyone
but him seemed to know it would,
he came away with that portion
of theirs for which his ex cared least
or of which she had grown tired.
So he and the cat had a comfortable
understanding until more and more
of theirs became hers alone.

April 22, 2023

HOW OLD?

People say that dogs can live
to well over 100 dog years,
but each of our years
is seven of theirs, so
our self-delusion feels complete.
We want old age for our dogs
to feel they have lived a full life,
something we also want for ourselves
and so we project on our pets.
The odd thing is that as we age
we wonder if our pets will
outlive us, and the older
we get, the more it begins to feel
that time is attempting
to behaves like dog time
the years seeming to pass
ever more quickly.

April 15, 2023

I WISH

You probably imagine that
the life of the poet is one of great
excitement and adventure.
There are moments that might
be deemed exciting or adventurous
but those happen just as often
in the lives of those who despise poetry.
And believe me, poetry is not only
not a career, it’s not a job unless you
sit in some city square and offer
to write a short poem for anyone
offering you a dollar, a prescription
for homelessness and starvation.
The life of a poet is setting aside time
to stare at a blank page of a journal
trying hard to imagine words appearing
and organizing themselves into
neat lines and stanzas, then
you put the Journal away in frustration
promising yourself to try again tomorrow.

April 9, 2023

ANCESTRY

It shouldn’t be so easy to forget
where your ancestors came from, why
they left their homes, traveled to
a new place where they might not be welcomed
but took the chance for a better future or just
to avoid the horrors of where they were.
It is a part of your DNA, yours were
the” other” then, but yours came and made
a new life, as your grandparents
told you repeatedly until you covered
your ears, the story an earworm
you only wanted to avoid again.
Now you sit in your pleasant home, with
food on your table, and decry those
who appear at the border as your
ancestors once did, seeking escape
from terror or poverty, so it seems
your forgetting is complete,
your ancestors are consigned to history.

April 7, 2023

MARKING TIME

Life Is of limited duration but we
never know what that duration is
until the moment it ends, and then
we have no reason to care.
But as we age and that period
necessarily shrinks, some pause
and wonder what’s left, wonder
what they might have done differently,
where they would be today if they had.
But they don’t stop to consider that
every moment spent in the past
is a moment taken from the present
and stolen from what the future offered.
You want to keep your memories, but
the price of storage is great, so there
is a tenuous balance to maintain.
Still your past is a shadow that
follows you, and the question is
whether you want to spend ever
more precious time looking
over your shoulders rather
than engaging the world around you.

March 29, 2023

EPITAPH FOR ANOTHER DAY

When I write the story
of my life, it will not be
me standing by the sea
staff in hand, waiting
for the waters to part.
It will be sand, endless
seas of sand, piled
around my feet.
I will not recount ten plagues
for there is only one
that matters at all
and it was not
terribly exciting,
no generation perished,
we weren’t overrun
with frogs or vermin
save the odd infestation
of cockroaches
and the passing rat
that makes faces
at the cat cowering
in the corner.
I could have climbed
that damned mountain,
but the thought of dragging
two great tablets back down
with the poor footing,
it just wasn’t worth it.
It has been over forty years
wallowing around in the sand
until it caked between my toes
and not a cursed thing
has happened, just sand
and writing on the sand
grows tiresome
after the first breeze.
Actually I don’t care
if I never see this new land, just
get me away
from this godawful sand.

First appeared in KotaPress Poetry Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2000
http://www.kotapress.com/journal/Archive/journal_V2_Issue1/journal28.htm

March 25, 2023

CONCEIVE OF THIS

No child, no youth
wants to imagine the moment
of his or her conception.
Now, that is the moment of personhood
in some places, a moment when
two cells become one and is
a life of its own, but it isn’t
the convergence of sperm and ovum
we avoid, but the act leading to it.
When you are an adoptee
and only later in life discover
your now dead birthparents
that moment, that scene
is a small void in your life
among larger voids you want to,
but cannot ever, seem to fill,
so it is left to your imagination
of time, place, circumstances
and ultimately action, but you ensure
that scene ends moments before conception.

March 3, 2023

WETLAND BRAVADO

He was the smallest, that
is what drew you to him.
Still, he had a certain bravado
a serious strut to his walk.
Perhaps it was because
his father was there, a protector
in part, in another part a challenge.
He knew his mother was looking
so it became a matter of pride.
He could imagine himself
a father one day, his own children
trailing behind him threatening
to break away, knowing full well
they were not ready yet, needed
him for protection from
the always present predators.
That was life in the wetland
for most wading birds,
the only life he knew or wanted.

February 10, 2023

FINAL TEST

If he were graded solely
on effort, he would have
received a B+ but life doesn’t
allow such a narrow view.

He had no father, no model
so he stumbled through looking
at others, unsure which were right
which were botching the job.

He bought an ancient first
baseman’s glove from Goodwill
the only left-handed glove they had
and I taught him to use it.

When we went camping
with the Boy Scouts, he the new
Scoutmaster, we made sure
to build the fire and set up his tent.

He’s been gone almost
four years and I remember all
of the things he tried and
for those I still mourn him.

February 4, 2023

PFFFT

As I age now I am
aware that the tether
to my earliest memories
has grown thin, stretched
by time until I know it will,
of necessity, soon give way.

And so I spend spare
moments trying to sort
through my life as I recall
it, selecting those moments
that bear the effort of retethering
so that time would be better
served weakening others.

But the hidden beauty,
I know, is that when a memory
is gone, has fallen away, it often
takes its shadow along, so there
is no hint even of its prior existence,
and you don’t mourn what
you never had, even if you did.