She writes beautiful poetry
Experiments with form and content

Many styles, many ideas
Some vivid, few abstract
but none mediocre

She's the Queen of Haikus
Scored a century recently

She said
Or someone will
Notice
Not us
Will notice
Just others
Are dancing

We should go
She sighed
Or someone may
Go
And not us
Without
Notice.

So,
We went
So
We danced
And everyone else
Noticed
Not us
But the lonely
Old women and men...
Chaperones, silent,
Eagle-eyed, standing
Un-moving, remembering youth...

While we danced.

For a few years now
I have awaken to the sound
Of my Mom's walker
As she moves around

It rattles a bit
Every time it strikes the floor
Then silence as she pauses
Before moving a little more

Of all the greatest singers
Musicians, classic composers and such
None have ever made anything
I love to hear as much

For I know the day will come
I'll not hear that sound
When she is gone
Never again in this life to ever be found

Though I dread that day
It keeps fresh in my mind
To always let her know I love her
And spend with her all the time I can find

And though that walker's a reminder of her
We all have people in our life
We need to always appreciate
Be it friends, family, husband or wife

For we just never know
When we'll speak to them last
And they will no longer be here
But only live in our past

So take every chance you get
To let folks know that you care
So you don't live in regret
When they are no longer there.

There is a
Hairline fracture
In the structure of my being

My life is but a collection of moments
Spent waiting for myself
To
c
       r
  u
              m
       b
              l
                  ­ e . . .

-

When was the last time
you climbed up a ladder,
looked at the sunset
through periscope eyes

Drank from the cabinet
marked liquor don’t enter,
watched an old movie
with tear drops and sighs

Danced in the garden
with daffodils watching,
sat down to dinner
and found something sweet

Floated on marshmallow
clouds on a Monday,
painted the lines
on the wrong one way street

Sang in a meadow
with butterflies playing,
swam in the dessert
neck deep in the sand

Picked up a quarter
and called it a dollar
even though ladybugs
slept in your hand

Read a new poem
and found something like this,
rolled both your eyes
and then wore a smile

Look at the bright side,
all that it cost you
was just spending time
with me for a while

Over Sixty years of marriage
We know that Dad still hurts
But the only words he ever said,
"We knew one of us would go first."
Phil Lindsey, 4/15/15