I dream of an empty chair
in a field of golden wheat
It’s a lonesome scene of solitude
with no one in the seat
I peer
I stare
Nothing seems to be there
but a surreal world
of Monsieur Magritte

They are the young innocents
unspeakably betrayed
who walk in paths of darkness
not knowing where they have strayed
Products of childhood trauma
built from assembly lines
of dreadful family dysfunction
that left them far behind

Don’t let the traces of
snow on the ground
and the air still yet cold
blind you
to the clouds of March
so thinly painted high in the sky
as to remind us of a Spring yet to come

I stand in a field
of cold stillness
Amidst it’s golden strands
I raise my arms
to hold the sun’s face
so warmly in my hands

Hang your troubles
on the Tree of Sorrows
Look for ones
to steal or borrow
Then step around
the tree again
grateful
that another’s pain

is not your own

“I have to look for your father”
we’d hear our poor mother say
for he had little fear
standing on the great pier
during a storm on the bay

When father had the Black Irish
we’d hear hear our poor mother pray
“Keep him off that **** pier”
when bad weather was near
so the sea couldn’t wash him away

Hope springs eternal
in the fertile ground of imagination