She lies angled toward the light,
Face upturned, eyes shut tight
As though somehow she must awake,
Though a brain scan says she never may.
We stop along our daily paths to pray;
Our seldom visits more for our sake
Than hers, as she is going away...
She is going away, and we must stay.

The difference between
            a flower and a ****,
Is only our recognition
            of our momentary need.

I sighed in the presence of a friend.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Life."  

"Hadn't you rather be thinking about your death?"

Words to live by....

On his way to or coming from
Feeding cows
Whistling or singing,
Orange twines tied in bows
Swinging above the tractor hitch.
Bales strewn broken in chunks
Across the hard white ground;
Cattle steaming in chill air
Stoking bellies with summer hay,
Against the cold their only coal to burn.

I'd rather he had fallen,
Smile upon his wizened face
Blue with cold, heart given way,
Just the way he'd prayed to go,
Than to have watched
The helicopter veer away
Into a frozen sky.

Sitting at her feet
Folding chair angled
So I can hold her feet,
One at a time,
I find the old worn places:
Liver, spleen, colon
To apply pressure.

"Does that hurt?"
After she winces just a bit.

"A little," from pressed lips,
Eyes closed, she sighs.

The cancer showed up seven months ago;
Liver picked its tumor from the colon,
Grew a ball of poison.

Feisty would be too harsh a word
For this stubborn soul so
Obstinate, forceful, unrepentant....

Seeing her in such a helpless state,
Belly distended with cancer's bloat,
Puke cup nearby, and pain distorting.
Mind here and there, present and past,
Brings tears to us who have fought her,
Trying her and tried by her;
Those of us who have always loved her.

Gentleness has replaced the hardness;
Tenderness to listen and to tell,
Gone away the lifeblood's tempestuous swell.

The living room now dying room...
A waiting room kept busy to supply
Liquids and pills,
Foot rubs, soft questions:
Will you eat an egg?
Maybe a bite of avocado?
Bacon is good, even more now
In its thin saltiness slowly ******.

Phone calls and letters arrive,
Some rejected; some received
To lift and give a little light.

The wheat we'd planted grew the summer through
Wind and rain and sun all came and just the same
The sprouted kernels rooted down, sky-blued up
Sun's warmth, clouds' rain, wind and calm came

July brought ripening fields turning gold
"Still too early," my father told us as we gazed
Then a week before August, our old truck rolled
And stopped beside bearded fields now hazed

By coming autumn dust. Our father strode into the rows
Snapped off three heads and felt the beards,
Crushed them as his millstone-hands rolled,
Then paused to see the produce of the year.

Phwwww! He blew. Hulls and beards flew down,
Left hard red berries cupped shallow in his old hands
Threw several seeds between his teeth and ground
We heard them cracking, forming gum.

"It's time," he said, and Harvest had begun.

This is the blind fruit, the fruit of rage,
The hurled epithet, the torn page;
Destruction in a second destroys the tree,
Leaves the rager empty...and grieving.

The sword tip pierces the tapestry,
The old man falling, "Help! Help!" entreats.
The quick penned death note sent with fools,
England's death unleashed on broken tools.

Love foresworn, too much Ophelia pined;
Drowned she her sorrows, Hamlet’s love denied.
Here’s rosemary; here's for remembrance.
And we who've seen these scenes so many times
Remember everything.

Has come and done his very worst.
She's gone and isn't coming back,
And all her things, though not at first,
Will leave this dry old place as we unpack
Her dishes and her books, her pretty things
That kept her grand kids from her place
And gathered dust on shelves and every open space.

I wonder now
Did Job's wife speak
The Devil's words,
"Curse God and die"?

Was Job's test the culmination,
The diabolical, canny ending,
The checkmate of temptation
To end the human nation?

"Curse God and Die."
These words give thinkers chills.
The brutal question, "Why?"
Faith-stifling word that kills.

Job's friends, his wife, his circumstance,
Combined his wounds to salt;
In misery, he sought the Lord, to stand,
And prove his misery was not his fault.

Job knelt before the Lord at last,
In yielding he found life;
For him, the test was passed;
But what about Job's wife?

Is the death of hope
The dying sigh Of freedom
Dying weekends
Expire in twilight
No one to speak My name to say
Everything will be
Okay.

Watched the Lord come to the garden.
Heard the Voice call softly, “Adam.”
In anticipation, licked his lips,
Felt shivers in his snake-ish hips.

Still no movement from the bushes;
Human forms still held their breath;
Chortling serpent, breathless, waited
In the garden where came death.

Alone, I sit looking to the west.
Sunday is quickly going down
My lover, two states away, sees light,
But our Sunday sun is sinking now.

I remember the sadness of Sundays gone,
Those weekend breaks could not last long
Dreaded the call to bed and sleep,
Wished a few more hours my own to keep.

Today's sky was harsh and clear, and now the sun
Hangs low and lower on the line
Above the trees and houses, nearly gone;
My loneliness is for her, and so I pine.

A dog might put its head between its paws
Look forlorn, old, thoroughly dejected,
But I must do my chores and never pause
Long enough to feel I am neglected.

Older men and older women find life
Must leave them before long,
So when the days turn weeks, the strife
Of loneliness and worry comes along.

Old Frost said well that nothing gold can stay,
That morning gold must quickly fade away,
And so it is I linger on the sun's chill light
Before I totter off to hide from coming night.

In a house awaiting death,
No Monday coming,
No thing to do but wait,
No sudden joys anticipate,
No early chores to distract,
Just a careful sitting back,
In breathless Sunday slack.

Though they will not stay long,
Nor, either shall I linger on.
Our bucking days are gone;

Somehow they've reconciled
To be companions and my friends
After years of push and pull between us.

Old Horses are the best,
Quiet now, and patient,
Willing now to stand or ride,
Their patience fills me with content.

I find myself thinking
Everything feels like Sunday
With no choir,
No homily,
No audible absolution.

No Monday in sight, nor Tuesday,
Though the sanitation truck appears
To let us know that time goes on,
That effluent must run to sea,
That wages must be paid,
That sidewalks must be cleared
Of dust or falling snow,
Though we ourselves
Are growing cold.
So it is we dwindle.

Could leave this world peaceful and shriven,
Be glad somehow those old debts of mine
Must now be ledgered and forgiven.

Watching loved ones work their sad old days
The land of death now beckons and sobers me
Enough to think I will follow in their way;
And to consider how I might leave free.

Of more than the sins Jesus has taken,
And more than payments owed to friends.
No, how to leave a sweetness unshaken
In my loved ones, my wife, and my kin?

I think I've some letters I need to compose,
Some arguments I've held too close to me,
And any odd embroilment that rose
While I was on my earthly power spree.

I'm 65, a scant ten years from average death
Of men my type and height and weight.
I'm sobering quickly as I count my breath
And know re-calibrating cannot wait.

We leave not in shouting, not in banging;
Rather, we leave whimpering, most of us.
Forgetting what we thought important,
The gut ache and the nagging cough
From us wrench sentience.

The dimming sounds, the fading lights
Take one-time treasures, held so dear,
Move them away, far out of mind.
What little hold we fast, we cannot think
To speak, though children lean in close.

This is how we leave.

"As I Stand on the Threshold"
is real,
is honest,
is every person's experience
before stepping free of scaffolds,
before learning to soar.

I can remember those same fears
on the marge of marriage,
on the receipt of my teaching license,
on the induction into leadership,
on the arrival of pregnancy,
on the realization that my parents were gone,
and that when voices asked for advice,
the eyes were looking to me....

All will be well.

When I am gone, oh, let me take my rest
On a plot of land where trees are blessed
To spread their branches, push out their leaves
Above the silent dead to comfort those who grieve

Beneath outstretching limbs let me lie in shade,
Perhaps along some hidden mountain glade
Where deer can browse on meadow grass
That shimmers or shivers as seasons pass.

Let old roots penetrate my loam and grow
Tall and straight as pines or crooked as old oaks,
Store house for squirrels, nest home for wrens,
Protection from the cold and owl along the glen.

Beneath a forest of varied green and steady brown
Let me lie in peace outside some town
Visited only by gentle rain and silent snow
At home with God, and unaware of winds that blow.

Ever the Optimists,
We Men.
Wee Men, we.
Wowed by
Simplicity.
Confused by
Complexity.
Slain by
Women's smiles.
Ever the Optimists,
We Men, we.

Wheeeeee!

Forgive me, sir, forgive me,
I think I'll just walk by;
I see unbridled anger;
I hear voices shouting high.

Cinders in your voices,
Fire in the skies,
I'm weary of your anger;
I think I'll just pass by.

Venom on the posters,
Riots in the air;
The innocent are losers
If anybody cares.

So, forgive me kindly, sister,
I think I'll pass you by;
I've lover, home, and children,
I must reach before the fight.

In a far off country have I roamed
Away from family, away from home.

Chaser of visions, Dreamer of dreams
Long have I been so far away.

What have I to speak?
To whom might I say,
"Forgive me, I have been away.
Remember me, I have been away."

To see her dancing with Jesus,
Free of pain
Celebrating finally
In some uncharacteristic way.
Do so by all means.

I tend to look backwards
To the memories I know
My mother, standing at the window,
Worrying over our father,
Miles away at the close of day,
Winter winds blowing,
Seven miles away in the winter pasture
He was opening a spring
Forcing his way in the deep snow,
To let the cattle drink.

Cherubs fed and washed, lie slumbering.
In dying light, in gathering gloom,
Upon the shadowed floors of living room,
Picking up the toys that scattered lie,
Stooping, she sighs to gather scattered things,
Orders them to wait awhile till morning.
Toys rest with arms akimbo, heads a-droop.
Stuffed bears and rabbits sag and dream.
She finishes the tidying and leaves the room.
She smiles a weary smile that lightens gloom,
Remembering when she was herself, alone.

River birch flowers hang green-gold,
Dangling earrings on beautiful ears;
Morning sun about to break horizon
I never tire of spring, however old;
Her call to life again brings my heart cheer;
I live on promises; Spring delivers here.

A billion, billion blades of grass stand dewed,
Reflecting golden light of rising sun;
They put me in an easy-breathing mood -
Another war with winter has been won.
Now shall I venture out to breathe spring air,
The smell of earth announcing fertile loam,
And I shall leave behind my winter care,
My thrilling blood has stirred me up to roam.

Young horses skitter, so riders beware
Their temperaments flighty,
They launch into air
At the drop of a cap
Or a jackrabbit's leap
They blow up in a second;
You'll land in a heap.

Old horses are easy, calm to the end,
Content to stand faithful and waiting,
Patient with kids and old men,
Almost never unnerved,
They'll take you home always,
Unconscious or tired or drunk,
They're used to your unspoken ways.

Tried to make peace with the Devil...
Left me smoking on the floor.
His chuckle left me all disheveled
As he sauntered out the door.

The contract, signed and duplicated
Left no real peace of mind.
The lawyers say it's complicated;
They'll get back to me sometime.

A fine print clause embedded
Intimates there's something more;
The peace I made is shredded;
I'll hear the flames around me roar.

The politicians have no chance,
Experienced though they be.
The devils celebrate and dance;
The Devil must collect his fee.

Letter in a bottle
Tossed upon the waves
I’m sure no one will ever read
But if you do….

Come find me here
Alone on this lonely island
Bring a pizza, will you, please?
I’m not picky….

Extra cheese, hold the onions,
Sausage and mushrooms,
But never anchovies….

Puget Sound in Fog
Flag drooping, wet, barely moving,
Tide out past the buoys;
The boat tipped,
Waiting water.

Drizzling mist of fog descending
No horizon but the pebbled sand
Herons move grayly in slack water
Hunting fish.

Ragged shoreline stretches to invisibility,
Battered logs, shells, a trillion broken things
Rest in exhaustion, uncaring,
Responding to unceasing chaos.

Tides rising,
Tides falling,
Delivering,
Destroying,
Grinding,
Removing,
Renewing,
Mo­ving to the pull
of earth
and moon
and universe.

Trying to hide.
Someone is coming.

I  recall John Wayne,
Hog leg in leather sheath.

I reach to find the trail gun,
Strip the leather.

Sprawled along the wall,
Behind the bed.

My pursuer arrives,
Looms large over me.

I aim and fan the hammer.
The old gun bucks, belches.

“It might have worked,”
Through gray smoke, he sighs….

Towering over me,
“Were we still alive.”

6-26-3024

Tried to make peace with the Devil...
Left me smoking on the floor.
His chuckle left me all disheveled
As he sauntered out the door.

The contract, signed and duplicated
Left me no real peace of mind.
The lawyers say it's complicated;
They'll get back to me sometime.

A fine print clause embedded
Intimates there's something more;
The peace I made is shredded;
I'll hear the flames around me roar.

The politicians have no chance,
Experienced though they be.
The devils celebrate and dance;
The Devil will collect his fee.

Can we live beside Evil,
Can't we just get along?
Can't we turn it a little
Using Music and Song?

Must we face it and name it,
Call it wrong to its face?
Must we risk our own comfort?
Can't we stay in our place?

Praying again today.
These are the long days,
The ones spent in the quiet pain of waiting,
Of thinking through the things we’ve said,
The things we need still to say.

Never quite content alone,
Never at home in a crowd.
Silence frightens us, and
So does being loud.
Never here nor there, but
Discontent in the present.
Longing for the past,
We crave a different future.

Few of us are blessed to find a calling
While in our youth, before our prime,
To leave but know the farm's the thing,
The earthly place we'll spend our time.

The Thiessen farm is ordered, neat,
Equipment, houses, corrals and sheds,
A visual treat, each row a street
To show the order in Dwight's head.

The old earth tracks the sun around,
Each spinning lap marks coming years,
Sees loved ones laid to rest in ground,
Brings little ones to stem our tears.

A weary circle - life, and few
Are those who see how they are blessed;
Dwight, Diana found that it would do
To farm, raise kids, thank God for rest.

One day, a doctor said the words
No one desires to hear, but still,
This couple prayed, they didn't swerve
From praying for God's sovereign will.

Back to the farm, the couple drove,
Held close in prayer by friends
Aware that good comes from above
Aware that everything must end

Dwight breathed one final breath, was gone;
He left and didn't say good-bye.
But, oh! what air then filled his lungs,
Celestial breath in heaven high!!!!

--------------------
Dwight's leaving reminds me of an old song by Don Wyrtzen (1971)

"Finally Home"  https://youtu.be/sBZe2nWRSjU?si=bTriiCVgoucus8Eb .

When engulfed by the terror of the tempestuous sea,
Unknown waves before you roll;
At the end of doubt and peril is eternity,
Though fear and conflict seize your soul.

But just think of stepping on shore-And finding it Heaven!
Of touching a hand-And finding it God's!
Of breathing new air-And finding it celestial!
Of waking up in glory-And finding it home!

When surrounded by the blackness of the darkest night,
O how lonely death can be;
At the end of this long tunnel is a shining light,
For death is swallowed up in victory!

But just think of stepping on shore-And finding it Heaven!
Of touching a hand-And finding it God's!
Of breathing new air-And finding it celestial!
Of waking up in glory-And finding it home!

I hear your wails;
I add my sorrow
To the howling winds.

I am smiling at your thought that the Apple Picker
has nearly died from standing on that ladder,
From hearing rumbling apples falling into the bins...

I have worked that hard as well, and I didn't die.

When a person works all day, standing on a ladder,
Or holding a paint brush, or swinging a hammer,
Or driving a tractor or truck, or shoveling manure....

You get the picture....

Yes, we grow blisters. Yes, we are exhausted.
Yes, we would rather be lounging on a beach
Almost anywhere else in the world...,

But the truth is this: After a long day's hard work,
Food fills most excellently,
The shower? The shower is the best shower ever,
And the sleep? The sleep is the sleep of the dead,
Dreamless, full of rest....

You make total sense, Student.
Now, a personal question:
Why do you not speak in class?
You have a strong intellect;
You think and write well.
It's time to open your mouth.
It's time to share your thoughts
With the rest of us....

Japanese fighter planes coming in
Three men at the gun, ready to fire;
How does one know it's time to go?

He knew the General Order, had never disobeyed:
"To quit my post only when properly relieved,"
Death leaning in or no. But what if it's time to go?

The Pacific teamed with ships; enemy planes sighted;
"Somebody's going to take a hit this time."
A sense that grew inside: "It's time to go."

He stood in the cramped gun house, "Good-bye, boys."
"Good-bye, Paul," one said, with no derision.
In his decision the certainty that it was time to go.

Swinging the steel door and stepping out,
His vision grayed from detonation,
Time stopped, or at least grew slow.

He'd left his post, nearly died in doing so,
Covered with gore from his friends
Who hadn't heard the call, "It's time to go."

"Read The Road," a recommendation
From a friend, fellow scholar, gentleman,
And so I struck out on the road, following
a man and his son pushing a shopping cart
Laden with food and blankets, and not much more.

Nuclear winter with cannibals seems to be the setting,
No green visible of any kind, and even snow is gray,
(Or, for McCarthy, grey). The road is long, littered, broken,
As is the man, as is the boy. No evident salvation, ever,
The man thinks, "There is no God. We are his prophets."

Still, beside the sea, gray, wild, cold, with the man coughing
His last ****** breaths in the dirt, tells his son he must
Move on, a dying man in a filthy blanket clinging to hope
For his son, crying under a dead winter sky, kneeling by him, poisoned soil beneath them, and down to a few cans of beans.

The old man next door loves birds,
Spends hours by his window every day
Watching his feeders without words,
Smiling as the winged ones come his way.

He lugs home sacks of feed and cob dry corn
Though his wife frets his spending.
He finds that kindness leaves him less forlorn,
Brings his old heart and mind some mending.

So out he goes to scrape rain-soaked seeds,
Clears the troughs, replaces suet in the cages,
Before retreating to his favorite chair to read,
Looking up to smile while turning pages.

Farm folk - Ranch folk,
Cattle and horses and wheat,
A world of sky and wind,
A land of temporary green,
Permanent brown,
Twenty-five miles from town.
A world of work,
Dirt in the air and in the lungs
Heat waves shimmering
A land of blowing cold,
Or heated mirage,
Day after day after day,
Until books and learning
Called me away.

Dead ones walking from cradles to graves,
Flesh somehow still living, feeding as it craves
Maleficent obsessions stirring passions rave
Madness in our ravings, sorrowing, we slave
We are the Living Dead; empty souls are we.
Unaware of living death, no living Salve seek we.

Until the furious Light of Grace pierces these cadaverous husks,
Awakens souls long slumbering in the death of dusk.
The Savior calls us from our sleep, "Arise and come to me!"
And those who hear His urgent call awake and are set free
The living dead, cannot awake through anything we've done.
The Living souls are living now through life in Heaven's Son.

As we wait beneath the mountains
For the passes to clear.

The river fills in torrents
As the horses and the men grow thin.

Feats of winter thriving
Fade in the springtime starving.

Birds fly high above,
Finding open water beyond us.

We wait in wonderment.
The dogs sense danger as we eye them.

Retreading the amphitheater steps
To my accustomed contemplative space
To see myself again in the eyes of the Fates,
Who spin and measure and snip.

Instead of Oedipus and Iocasta,
Arthur Miller is the Muse whose Loman
Must my aging sense abuse and disabuse
If I but can.

Erikson sits here beside me, taking me along
The 8 staged declension or ascension of aging
And looks me square and says, "Integrity or Despair?"
While I am sitting here.

My students, nearing 20 years of age
See Hoffman's Loman strut and rage his memories,
Bemused they turn away as if to say this dreaming
Is for older men.

I am an older man, and I cannot deny the meaning
Of old Miller's play packs much more punch
Today than just a decade back, but I am driven
Once again to this assay.

I know the old hymn, "O When I Come to the End
Of My Journey," and I long to die in peace,
Hands folded in an easy rest, content in every thought,
At seeing God's own Hand.
In His integrity, I'll stand.

Approaching customs, my father slowed the car.
"Time to eat! he said, and pulled us to the side.
He'd bought peaches from a fruit stand,
Forgotten they'd never cross the border.

Never one to waste, his plan unfolded.
We stood beside the car, peach juice
Trickling down our arms,
Falling at our elbows,
Gorging a delicacy turned to glut,
Making memories of forced generosity,
Gluttons of fruit, victims of parsimony.

My mother knew what was coming:
The cramps we kids would have
From smuggling peaches
In stretched bellies
Into Canada.

Whitman looked down at nature,
Saw the grains of sand, the single blade of grass,
Reflected on the journeywork of stars,
Taking it all in, he let it all out his barbaric yawp
Across the rooftops of the world.

You are not forgotten, Walt.

Dad gave us pliers and their holsters --
Said, "Wear them when you come outside."

At nine and ten, we carried them,
Entering the world of working men.

I wore out pliers and holsters,
Bought new ones and wore out them.

Now several sets reside in treasured spaces,
In boxes and vehicles and other places.

These days seldom used, my pliers remind me
Of my growing up, of everything behind me.

We pray to align our minds to the mind of God
We read the Word to renew our minds;
The Word changes us,
Never the reverse.

Change the Infinite?
We cannot.

Manipulate the Almighty?
Impossible.

Make the straight our crooked path?
Inconceivable.

Creation cannot become Creator;
Though it bear His Image,
It is merely mirror,
Never Light.

Servants are we,
Never Master.

This the Way.

Memories linger and arise…
Misty ghosts before our eyes.