One Thought At A Time
She turned to me with haunted look
Atop the spires of her pain,
I took her to my house and bed
And made it snow, and sleet, and rain
Her brown hair tumbled everywhere,
As she arched back in focus pure;
I thought I’d known that haunted look,
But never could
Be sure
The beach was empty, early,
It was just before the spring;
The calm before
The tourist season storm
My walk was three point seven
Miles. Yes, I knew it well,
For early morning walks
Were then the norm
I wasn’t wearing headphones
For I liked the ambience;
The Gulf of Mexico
Makes quite a sound
And one can act the fool
In joy and wonderment when one
Thinks no one else is
Anywhere around
Of course, that day, the empty beach
Was not quite empty, for
You were there in a chair
Beside the sea
And I did not see you until
A minute passed or more
Of you observing strange,
Erratic me
I saw you with embarrassment,
You didn’t seem to mind.
All ninety-seven pounds of you
In state
I said, “Hello. I’m Owen,”
And you answered with a laugh.
And now, three decades later,
Strange is fate:
For I’m back on the empty beach,
The spot where we first met.
You’re far from here,
As far as one could be —
But we’re still friends, of thirty years.
We’re both grandparents now,
Yet somehow
Still a boy and girl
To me
Here I am again, then – very young
And wandering the beaches of my youth;
My father, with his Kodak, took this picture
And I thought nothing of it then, in truth
The wonder of a sea so vast and teeming;
Of sand so white, with so much sky above —
Does not today seem to me as astounding
As how it was I missed
My father’s love
That’s actually me.
I used to be a super-hero
Back when I was five:
My swordplay nonpareil; in fact,
No villain would survive
Their villainy, if they, perchance,
Happened to come past me;
I’d take them all down, laughing,
As I left a giant ‘Z’ —
I kind of peaked at five, I think,
My days as Mini-Zorro;
I’ve never been as dashing since,
To my eternal sorrow —
Yes, super-heroes go away
When they become unsuited,
Until another child comes
And all of it’s
Rebooted
The house we’re in now’s not the one
In which the kids got bigger;
The little mem’ries I have lost –
The count’s too great to figure
For life’s a craft of painting dots
These flecks of hopes and prayers
That only form a picture when
There’s no one left
Who cares
Within the vineyard of her honeyed youth
The red wine flows through long and draping vines;
From sharpest grape it runs to sweetest tooth,
Down where the soil and the sun combines
To bring about a type of miracle.
A marvel that she’s not thought on for years:
A thing that’s not the least satirical,
A sober thing of ancient engineers.
For light and flippant are her thoughts these days,
Of vanity and life amid the stars;
The latest trend, the hottest fashion craze,
And all the best of nightclubs and of bars —
She stops and blinks, a teardrop to conceal;
Within her father’s vineyard, life was real
.
Picture / Photo Credit : © Mikhalevich | Dreamstime.com – Vineyards. Watercolor. Photo
I thought I’d been in love, but then
They all just fell away;
The summer, full in clarity,
My life: a farce, a parody
And full of rue by day,
And full of rue by day.
I thought I’d seen the truth, but then
The clouds came crashing down:
The summer blazing, burning bright,
Alone and lonely in the night,
A swimmer prone to drown,
Yes, liable to drown.
For many people give us joy,
And many give us sorrow;
But very few give reasons we
Should love again tomorrow.
We pass the days in indolence,
And years go flying by:
We find that love seems out of reach,
Although we yet may try —
I thought I’d been in love, but then
I realized for sure:
That love’s a growing, living thing:
A song we have to learn to sing,
That comes with no brochure,
No map, and no brochure.
