"**** the torpedoes!
Full Speed AHEAD!"
So it is we lose our heads
And trust the masses
Whose rabble rise
To stick their fingers
In our eyes.

Freire told us true:
Dialogue must happen;
Time must be taken
To speak Truth,
To hear Truth,
To see Humanity
In the Other.

If not,
Violences ensue,
Blood spills,
The hordes topple
In toppling their oppressors...
Become oppressors.

Still,
Small voices
Whisper
"Imago Dei!"
"Imago Dei!"

Stop to listen,
Stop to see,
Stop to think.

We and They,
They and We,
Are We....

Are WE.

when the telephone rang
at six in the morning
four days before Christmas Eve
   I knew
things were not right

they told me
   my father had died
   at three in the morning
   and would I please come by
   arrange for the burial
   and collect his belongings
at the senior citizens home
where he had spent
the last four years
of his life

they had rested him nicely
he looked at peace
I kissed him on his forehead
   like I always had
   at the end of my visits
and cast a last long look at his figure
   before the body would be taken away

    and suddenly I noticed
       how big his hands were
    they’d never seemed so prominent before

as if in death they sent me a reminder
of how much he had loved his hands
   for work   for play  for sports
   for fight and for survival
   to point and to gesticulate
      they held me as a baby and
         some times
      slapped me as a child
   they repaired toys   split wood
   built sheds   drove cars and motor bikes
   were patient and precise
   caressed and soothed and loved

they were his life
they held his world

my father’s hands

Spiral of fate foreseen
A Vegas winning sure thing
A journey to realms beyond
Where those already gone
Traveled before I
With letters sent home
still left unseen
Wait, I'm not ready!
Is there another?
This train came too soon!
Excuse me,
I'll wait for the slow train!
Can I exchange my ticket?
For a later departure?
Perhaps tomorrow?
Of course tomorrow,  
Can never be!  
Round trip ticket please!
I wish to not be gone long!
I must return, otherwise,
who will care for the wee ones!  
Wait, I still must pack!
All my silver and gold
Can I bring?  
Is First Class an option?
A sleeper car?
Bring any friends?
My loved ones
should meet me
after reaching the end!
Must I board,
This train?
An evil angel at the controls
in the locomotive's cab
steam billowing all around
conductor in a ghastly robe
bearing the cutting scythe
leaning out the door
shouting out
to the platform crowd
"All aboard!"
"All aboard!"
this train
always runs on time
and no one ever
gets left behind
except perhaps a few
entering heaven alive
first stop is Sh'eol
all disembarking to wait
then chugging on to the
station with pearly gates  
those remaining aboard
catching a glimpse
then fast downhill all the way
to the end of the line
the last stop of Abaddon

©  2017 Jim Davis

We gathered our water
and packs at daybreak
to hike hand in hand
toward the distant ruin—
a tall stone chimney planted
on otherwise empty acreage,
a kudzu-covered tower,
the ghost of a farmhouse
now a home to field mice,
black beetles and bats,
with bricks the color
of weathered blood,
vertebrae stacked
a century and a half ago
by a stonemason’s craft,
still solid and bonded
despite the slow decay
of arthritic mortar.

How long have we
walked together?

The morning
is all we have
left to ponder.
We walk for hours;
the chimney grows
larger at our approach.
I want to ask you
a question about
the night we met,
what you said
just before I held
you for the first time,
but then I catch sight
of my hand and realize
I am walking alone,
moving inexorably
toward a ruination
of my own making.
How could I have been
so careless? Unable
to stop, every step
strips something away:
my hair thins and falls,
as white and weak
as sickled wiregrass;
another step and my
body atomizes into
the stuff of stars,
pollen scattered
on a rising wind.

So this is what it
feels like to decay.

By the time I reach
the ruin I am mostly
cinder and ash,
a sorry vestige
sown in a quiet field,
a forgotten landmark
that strangers will visit,
if only to contemplate
how the evening fog
spindles like smoke
along the enduring
column of my spine.

Dad,
Can it be that you are gone now,
Five years' comings and goings,
Five solar journeys now, around the sun?

I can still see your shape,
Thin and worn,
Overalls, too big,
Cap pulled down,
Pliers hanging at your side,
Lace-up boots, worn,
And your face, lined,
Eyes still twinkling, though
Weary after a day's work,
Fixing,
Farming,
Fencing,
Feeding.

In my mind, you're
Going off to the barn,
To hay the cows,
Like an old imam
Heading mechanically
To daily prayers,
Moved by routines
Impossible to ignore.

The man and the work,
So embedded in the other...
No more thought of leaving -
Though as a younger man,
You spoke of some day retiring -
There was no way, and no desire,
Farming was your one remaining fire.

So, five years are gone,
And yet, everything still
Standing on the farm
Bears resemblances of you.

The peeling buildings, sagging still,
The gravel paths you tended,
The panels your hands welded,
The barns and sheds you built
Still stand, and bear the evidence
Of Arthur Bouchard's hands.

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