the old woman stopped crying

though she knew the tears would return
like the prairie winds, without warning,
from some place she could not see    

soon they would come for him,
place him on the gurney
cover him in white shroud
wheel him through the door:

a horizontal journey,
like the vertical one he had made myriad times before,
on two strong legs, to and fro the pastures and pens
where he did sweat honest work  

she leaned over to kiss him a last time
in evening's fading light

she had honored his final request and turned him
so he could face the open window--his old eyes then toward the red barn, the gray fences, the ground his livestock grazed  

past all this, to the flatland that seemed to go on forever

i.

The sisters are, like their brethren everywhere,
An amalgamation of gentle touch
And soothing words delivered in sepia tones
(Comrade, you will be up
And out of here before you know it)
In such a manner as to convince you
That they believe it to be true as well,
But I have made something of a living
In the interpretation of the unsaid,
And what I have seen in a certain knitting of their eyebrows,
An occasional tightness around the throat,
The set of the jaw as the doctor studies my chart,
And I suspect that this may be
The final station on my excursion,
The last listing on the timetable;
Indeed, as I click off the inventory of my own person
(The fever, the unsightly and damning rash)
I have come to the conclusion
That I may find the denouement of this particular tale
To be highly unsatisfactory reading.

ii.

I am at considerable leisure to think, reminisce,
And even, though wholly without purpose, to dream.  
On more than one occasion
I have drifted back to a certain train ride
(I was headed to the Congress of the Peoples of the East,
Not without some trepidation, I might add)
Traversing almost all of Mother Russia, from Murmansk to Baku.  
Oh, there was any number of wonders
To be viewed through the windows:
The broad, seemingly endless steppes,
The grandeur of the Urals and Caucasus
The wide, sluggish Irtysh,
But there were other sights,
Unsettling, almost portentous views as well:
Villages, burnt and abandoned,
Cows and horses so thin
Their hides appeared almost threadbare,
Peasants of all ages whose eyes gave evidence
Of seeing such pain, hunger and death
That it was a wonder they could still stand upright,
Or, indeed, have the desire to do so.  
We, conversely, rode, if not in the lap of luxury,
Comfortably indeed—no shortage of coffee and *****,
Even caviar on a more or less daily basis.
Finally, no longer able to contain discontented thoughts
(I knew my outburst would be reported back to the Comintern)
I said to the Red Army captain sharing my compartment
That it seemed incongruous, if not counter-revolutionary,
To be overfed when the backbone of the proletariat
Was starving and dying before our eyes,
That, surely, there was something we could do.  
As he walked from his seat  toward the window,
He smiled and said as he pulled them downward
Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to pull the shades.


iii.


Again, having a certain gift of observation
Proves to be a mixed blessing:
There are certain signs (the adjacent beds
Being placed a touch farther away,
A certain distance, physical and otherwise
By the doctors and nurses)
And it is clear to me that my remaining sunrises and sunsets
May be counted on fingers and toes,
And my musings have turned to my placement
After I am discharged from further ministrations,
And I find it somewhat amusing if not entirely suitable
That the epitaph upon my tombstone
(If I am afforded such a luxury;
It is far from certain that the pig-eyed Zinoviev
May not just have me thrown into some dungheap,
There to sate the desperate hunger of the cur and the swine)
Will be likely written in Cyrillic,
An idiom I found wholly perplexing and inscrutable.

there is no poetry today,
i said.
but today is the poem.
the laughter, the conversations,
the sharing of beauty,
the seconds that turn into moments
that turn into life
that turn into memories.
isn’t time the poetry of life?
isn't the feeling of not having enough words
to tell of the wonder of this day
worth more than a poem?
the seeking and the finding,
the making and the living:
this is the poetry hiding below our feet,
the music we long to sing.

i have learned to measure time
in wednesdays
in laughter
in the smiles we shared together
in midnight text messages
in chocolate chip cookies from Subway
and croquetas
i have learned to measure time
in poetry and coffee cups
in stories and hugs
in plays and words read
but mostly
i have learned to measure time
in the moments we’ve been together
in the moments i've felt loved
they say time flies
but like this, to me
time is infinite

The Plane, The Mist, and the Moon

An evening walk: a plane, its vapour trails
All golden in the setting sun, sails west
A rising mist on darkening fields below
Creeps Grendel-ish along the forest line

And framed in branches skeletal, the moon
Observes and rules all in the chilling dusk
Without a wind dry oak leaves stir about
And then are still again, and no one knows

Disparate thoughts on a quiet evening walk
Along with the airplane, the mist, the moon

On the Vigil of the Nativity

In a Capuchin friary, on a wall
In faded letters from the long ago
A simple sign asks the casual visitor

                      “Why Are You Here?”

And that’s a fair question; it always is
If I am in one place, I am not in another;
Unless someone has forced me otherwise
I have made a choice to be where I am

So why do I kneel here (and half asleep)
In a Stable, among cattle and sheep?