Calling Spring North,
Chirping buds to burgeon,
Teetering in rain that turns to sleet,
Clutching black, wet branches,
Feathers puffed against the chill,
Cocked heads seeking sleepy worms,
Side glancing carefully the neighbor's cat.

These red-breasted birds
Chortling in the morning sun
Precurse Spring,
Sing cheer to me.

Though I, no longer young,
My Autumn just begun,
Winter coming on,
Life's seasons only last a while.

I have a Savior,
Who has gone before,
Endured cold Winter's death,
Calls me to Spring,
Beckons me to Summer....

What are the changes of five years' tugging and pulling
On your mind, your face, your frame?
I have seen the years' etchings on my own face,
Felt the downward pull, the weight of years,
Seen wrinkles that had never been appear.

What thoughts you must have had in five years' time,
I cannot really know, but I have tried, and I have cried
The long nights away, and the days have lingered on,
And I have missed your serious face, and your laughing eyes,
And your fire. Oh, I have grown chill without your fire!

I know the depths to which I have plumbed, sounding answers,
But answers never seem to come, and the plumb returns dry,
When I wind it back to my weary, waiting heart.
Though my hopes drop silently into depths like falling stone,
No splash rewards my falling heart to tell me I am not alone.

So, birthdays come and go, and though we, both of us, grow old,
Still I have hope to spend, and at least a falling stone moves on,
And nothing ever really stops, so I hope on...so I hope on.
If you read these words some day, know my love won't go away,
That in every way I long to hear your voice, to see your face.

Love always,

Dad

Outside lying on his back
In a pool of his own ****
Up to his shoulder blades,
His whiskers slobbering spit,
***** pooling in his lap,
Leather stomacher exposed,
His belly spilling out a gap.

Rolling side to side,
Screaming obscenities,
Flailing hog stuck in muddy sty,
Cursing desperately for help,
Screaming to anyone, to God,
Up in a wheeling, blurry sky.

Too much to drink that day,
Too much for 40 years,
Too much whiskey every day
Led to his *****-filled fears...
Stumbled him; tumbled him away.

We boys had headed to the bar
For burgers before a game;
Saw Charlie rolling on his back,
Fighting no one in the street,
Bare ****** in his drunken sinning,
Terrified and terrorized,
Moaning and bawling and spinning
Under a sunny, small-town sky.

When Brian tried to get him up,
Old Charlie's cursing grew,
And Brian backed up laughing,
Not knowing what to do.

I stood a ways away,
Hadn't seen a thing like this before,
Until a couple men came out
And dragged old Charlie in a door.

Forty years have gone, I guess,
And Charlie's been gone twenty,
But when I stop to think of him,
I ask myself if I've had plenty,
And tell the waiter, "Two is fine;
I'm done tonight, I guess."
And pay my check while I can see
To leave a little for the rest.