Another chore is calling. It
Is time to cut my fingernails;
Just one more choice I might get wrong
And send my poor night off the rails –

There is no upside I can see;
For varied colors I have none.
I’ll go with “clear & manly” for
That’s how I always get them done.

But I might cut too short and then
I end up in a painful mess,
Or I might clip them jagged and
Then scratch my wife with my caress.

A thankless task I must endure.
And now you have endured it too:
Like fingernails across a board
I’ve shared my clipped concerns
With you

She was

Like a very old window

Who shone

Because she transmitted

A light

Far older than she

[For my grandmother. – Owen]

Though young, I memorized the many names
Of all the books up on my mother’s shelf;
Eventually, I read them, every one.

Like voyages I’d longed to take, myself,
I found them strange and wonderful, indeed;
These old books that I new as only names.

They all took part, my growing soul to feed,
Connected me to worlds that long had passed,
And gave me reading’s love, a love steadfast.

.

Today, upon this table, I can see
What’s left of someone gone, who much like me
Loved all these books for how they made her feel;
Who found that fiction made her life
More real

we know that rain’s a healthy thing,
but yet, it seems a barrier
to many things we want to do;
so we become a tarrier
just waiting for the rain to cease –
although its sound may bring some peace –
we want it to be through —

we’ve known the rain since childhood,
it comes and goes as rain’s inclined;
but yet, we often will complain,
and in these haggard moments find
some solace in the strange belief
that rain just comes to give us grief
and storms to cause us pain

regardless of its frequency,
we tend to take rain
personally

I drink, therefore
I am aware
That water is
A luxury

A simple thing
In many lives,
But scarce to those
In penury

For those who thirst
Who truly thirst
Know water’s best
And thirst’s
The worst

The marvel that you wrote a thing
When you were halfway ’round the world
That then would show up at my door –
‘Twas really some invention —

It’s strange how we no longer see
The wonders of technology:
We take them now as granted things,
Just so much bland
Convention

she keeps years’ worth of birthday cards;
the ones she gets, or’s yet to give –
the colors, lines, the messages,
allow her to relive —

for often, what is physical,
is more emotional than that
which merely lives within our heads;
so often, she has sat

and read again these many cards.
for they can brighten up a day
or make her think, or love again:
yes, art is funny
in that
way