When she was almost young, she slept
Next to the fields of pure delight;
When she went almost out, she heard
Of secret pleasures in the night
When she felt almost love, she dreamed
Of freedom found in ecstasy —
Yes, when she almost lived, she lived
Just two doors down
From me
(“Almost” – 5-21-2017)
I softly knocked upon a door
No longer mine for knocking,
And saw within the empty room
A chair still gently rocking
It sat there, neat within its dust,
More lonely now, than squalid;
For what it held had gone away
Where few now can recall it
For love, it whispers in the dark,
While hate blows trumpets often;
We box ourselves into such lives
As just lead to a coffin
But I have known this rocking chair
When all it was, was quiet;
Away from all the growth of lies
That make our daily riot
I knocked, and entered, stood and looked,
The dust it tumbled in the sun,
And maybe I gave up, back then,
But maybe – all of that is done
For love can heal when all else fails.
Those years go by, and bad ones;
We comfort how and where we can
The lonely and the sad ones
For every dream and every heart;
For voices: singing, talking —
Can still live on within such rooms
Like chairs that just
Keep rocking
Standing all alone
Shoreside boy
Has choices to make
(“Growing Up” – 8-7-2014)
They couldn’t say what started the fire
But the two of them found themselves
In the middle of it
The dry kindling of their desperately dull lives
Caught flame
Burning
Out of control
And she didn’t care
For once she didn’t care what
Other people thought
There were no other people
There was just her
And him
And this bed
And feeling
And he, he had tried
To do things the right way
He wanted to live
Like this, like now
And she was warm and wild
And he found it in himself
To give her everything she was wanting
And the fire raged
And roared
And destroyed everything in its path
Lapsing finally, in the early hours
To nothing but
Smoke
And the charred remains
Of what their lives had been
Once
A woman and her husband
Stopped at this place
She, eight months with child
He, thinking about walking out
And the drive had been a tense one
Old wounds reopened
Fresh hurts on display
And an old couple was there
At the same time
Laughing while they pumped gas
They asked her when the baby was due
She said, “One month.”
The old man asked her husband
“Are you excited?”
“Nervous,” was the reply
“Don’t be. Just remember:
Loving someone
Who loves you back
Is the greatest thing in the world.
And your child
Will love you back.”
Forty-eight years later
The woman is no longer young
She stands at this abandoned place
Her young granddaughter in tow.
“What is this place?” the little girl asks
This place?
This is where your grandaddy and I
Decided to stay in love
(“Filling Station” – 8-15-2014)
He was so rapt in yesterday
He mortgaged his tomorrow,
The moments all collateral
Against which he could borrow
But found, apace, they’d slipped away,
Their fragile cords all severed —
For we must “now” while there’s a now,
Or else we’ll find
We nevered
