What happens after death?
Someone sheds a tear for you,
smiles for you,
and the memories live on,
as you live on,
alive in another.

The first time I saw the ocean
I was transfixed, caught like a
fish on a hook, or a newborn
baby first viewing its mother.
Enraptured and forever
emotionally captured.

For over 75 years the irresistible
pull and power of the sea does
still inspire and enchant me.
This is a purely one-sided affair,
as the vast oceans pays to me, or
any human no attention whatsoever.

Dads are people sons never
forget, for good or bad and
when the son is gone there
is no one to remember the
father. Say for some fading
black and white photos in a
scrap book: "That was your
great grandfather. He fought
in the war. People called him
Bud, but his real name was
Wyett with an E. He taught
me to cast a fly in a mountain
stream and tune the engine
in my first car, and not to lie."

My grandsons almost grown
are good and loving chaps, but
never ask me about their Great
Grandfather. Out of sight, out of
mind, I guess. Maybe I am the last
to remember or care. Our touchstones
to the past are frail at best.

I don't want to give
the monsters in me
A chance to slay you
Before I have my chance
to slay them

Only to find out
These monsters might make me whole
And maybe I will keep them after all

Because maybe these monsters
Fight for the parts of me
You love the most

I kept running
through the wilderness,
day after desperate day,
Sometimes I saw
the scenery -
Most times I
was too afraid
Sometimes I felt loved
but then I cringed and
it flew away
But mostly I kept running
day after desperate day

I kept running through
the wilderness,
On passed the concrete grid -
into foreign lands
where no one knew the
things I did
If anyone ever misses me
I'm right here for them to find
In the wilderness just a mile
or two outside my stable mind

An Autumn breeze
is not the flighty winsome tease she was in Spring
she has experience to bring and is more certain
collecting up the fallen leaves
to weave them through October's curtain

lift the cotton, look again.

cover the place with whiteness.

pink is pretty, white is clean.

they do not want to see it
today, a reminder of fragility.