Here today and gone tomorrow,
True of love and joy and sorrow.
Frost said gold lasts but a day...
So does work, and so does play.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
True of anger, pain and horror.
Savor golden days whene'er they come;
Remember them when they are gone.

My brother related a strange dream that he had:
It took place in a bar; he was there with our Dad.
they both ordered a Guinness, in the mood for a stout.
They both were committed  to enjoy their night out
The barkeep then asked if they'd be running a tab.
Jim reached in his pocket, he paid for his drink  and Dad's.
" I don't think we will."" Just the one now" He said,
"For I'm on blood thinners and my Dad here is dead."

And the snow was melting from the hills;
Green was glowing down in the north pasture;
Crocuses were bucking a hard west wind;
Calving was swinging on, and spring barns to muck,
And you were yelling about some thing or other,
The way you always do, or the way you always did,
Back in the day when you were here,
And I was just a lazy kid.

Dad, you remain somehow this giant in my mind,
Sleeping or waking,
I see you still,
Hear your voice,
Watch you running
One job to the next,
Passionate about everything,
Restless and without rest,
Some nameless demon chasing you,
Pulling the rest of us in your wake.

So the last three nights I've seen you,
Sat at table across from you
To discuss my leaving the farm:
You concerned I was a fool to go,
And I convinced I could not stay.

I wish I knew the hold you have on me
Six years gone with you away, and me,
Two states removed and a career nearly done,
Still finding myself waking from dreams
That linger vivid on.

Straying wayward, walking home,
I left the narrow path and wandered off alone
Just past the trees along the edge and up a dusty hill;
I found a cave there hollowed and felt a sudden chill.

Down through the dirt and leaves I crawled into the cave
To see if there were pleasure there to make me crave.
I caught a scent of danger, almost a living thing,
But as I backed up quickly, I touched a leather wing.

Upward rose a serpent head; tiny eyes glowed red
My backing self was scooting now, and I was filled with dread.
"My friend! You've nothing here to fear!"
"I'm just a little dragon, not even fifty years."

Into sunshine came he then, less fearsome in the light
To bring me pause from tumbling off in fright.
An hour later, carried on my back,
I took a baby dragon home, hidden in my pack.

"If you don't mind, I'll need to hide," my new friend said.
"I'll stay here in your closet, and I'll sleep beneath your bed."

Soon our friendship blossomed as secrets often do,
I'd off to school each morning, then run right back at two
To meet my baby dragon and get to know him more,
Still hidden from my family behind my bedroom door.

One day while I was off to school, I heard the siren sound.
Smoke rose above the treeline on my family's side of town.
When I arrived, my home was ash; my fiery friend was gone.
Now I know that little dragons grow to burn us down.

Could go by February, or even March,
The way she carries on her wintry game,
Her laundry's cold and wet, stiff in snowy starch.
She promised us firsts, left us with seconds,
Spent herself, it seems, in company of Winter,
Petulant, credit spent, she left her tenants
Freezing blue 'til nearly May.
Robins shiver, lost in snow and sleet
While budgies safe in kitchen cages
Tilt their heads and shift their feet,
Perhaps to wonder what do robins eat.
Desperately slog we the winds of Spring,
Encouraged little when the robins sing.

I have never been a big fan of hospitals, yet here I sat.
Wordlessly, I held my Grandmother’s hand, listening to each breath.
She was somewhere north of ninety as she neared her journey’s end.
She was lucid intermittently, she spoke of departed friends.
She told me of her adventures; the mountains she had climbed.
Sunsets she’d shared with lovers who then parted by sunrise.
She told me of her voyages on Homer’s wine dark sea.
“ I leave this life with no regrets.” She whispered, soft, to me.
Those were the last words that she spoke though her heart kept on some time.
It waited for her spirit to resume her final climb.
A final lesson for her grandson; the good life requires chance.
A life lived too conservatively is no subject for romance.

A most remarkable woman; she parted here with no regret.
She experienced the best of Life from sunrise to sunset.