Don't bother me...
Don't bother me...

The snow or rain or wind
You bring
Are only temporary flings,
Changing the golds and the blues
For a day and then blown away....

Gray skies,
Fling your snow,
Spew your rain,
Blow your gales again,
And leave the soil moist,
The air swept clean,
The birds returning with the Spring,
And I will soon rejoice
In yellow sun and green.

Gray skies don't bother me.

Not all demons
slither hissing into view,
roar from fang-riddled maws,
slash their way to horrors,
unimaginable....

Grima Wormtongue,
One of our own,
Whispering servant of Theoden,
Enervating counselor of the king's ear,
Luller of restless sleep,
Side-leering gaper of fair Eowyn
from near closed eyes...
Lusting her beauty as Saruman's prize....

Sneaking and sly,
Harmless and weak
in appearance;
Dangerous as arsenic
Green and poisonous
At heart...

A demon?
No less,
No more.
A tool of the Lord?

A weakener of resolve,
A hardener of arteries,
Caster of doubt and fear,
Prince of febrile inaction,
Luller of all dreams noble,
Fool and leader of fools.

Worthy of death,
Gifted with banishment,
Eventual giver of Palantir,
Unwitting knife of justice
At Saruman's throat...

A demon?
No doubt,
But even so,
Luther maintained
That even the devil
Was God's devil.

Grima Wormtongue,
Unwilling tool
Of the Almighty.

Forecaster's greatest joy
The weather equivalent
Of the sacking of Troy...
Hell and damnation
Aloft in the clouds,
Heavenly wrath from
Funnel-ish shrouds.

My father wakes,
Prepares for chores,
Quick breakfast takes,
Throws on his coat,
Slides boots for wet or dry
On his aging feet,
Heads to the barn
In every weather,
Adjusting to the wind
And sun and precipitation,
Weatherman or no,
Undaunted if he sees
Hard rains
Or falling snow.

Sitting early at McDonalds over a dollar cup,
I join a gathering of days...no longer years...
Whose better days are nearly up
Alone, or nearly so, they gather here.

Greetings gruff or none belie camaraderie;
They wait until each man has joined the crew,
Half-hearted views of the morning news,
Wonder of a friend who's feeling blue.

I cannot hold myself away from finding me
A few years up this downward road,
Waiting with the men I've come to see...
A weary lot to meet and think of growing old.

He had no idea if he would...
If he could actually do it...
When the time came,
When his sergeant gave the nod,
Let slip the dogs of war,
Unleash the copper bees,
Send missiles hurtling up or down
At targets moving now...
On men who may be wondering
If they could fire the same,
When the time came....

"Steady, men!"
"On my command."

He lay there,
On a roof,
In a ditch,
On an open field,
Crouched inside a turret,
Bellied down in a plexiglass ball,
Hurtled above a world mostly covered in cloud,
Standing far below the earth in silo'd steel,
Seeing still, through satellite eyes....

Peered into the mil dot scope,
Ignored the cross
To see through the center,
Found the circled aperture,
Punched coordinates into a seeing machine,
Saw green circles on the screen...
Aligned the circles....
Tried to breathe.

So that was how it was
For farm boys, Mowers of hay,
Grocers' sons, smashers of ants,
Carpenters, hammerers of nails,
And bakers' boys, cutters of bread,
Just in from shooting marbles and BB guns,
Transported into war,
Fed soldiers' ration:
meat and bread and beans,
Five cigarettes apiece in boxed MREs,
Sent off to **** and to be killed
With mothers' tears still fresh upon their cheeks,
With lovers' ache still glowing embered heat.

Training fresh,
Waiting command
To fire only when the order came...
To remain firing til the order came...
To hold the breath and squeeze...
To hold the sight just so...
To squeeze...
And to reload
Keeping head low,
Eyes on target...
To ignore all but the sergeant's yell,
To think of squeezing on new targets,
To wait awhile to process coming hell....

And when the time came,
He squeezed,
Felt the sudden life,
Heard little but the sound of
Clean ejection ...
Saw his bullet,
Saw his missile,
Saw his target meet,
And in the meeting,
Red,
And in the meeting ,
Fire and smoke,
And in the meeting
Knew  that he could do
What soldiers do.

This boy
Now cutting hay,
Now stomping ants,
Hammering nails,
Cutting loaves of cooling bread...
Caught in the maelstrom of war
With no moment left but now,
No possible tomorrow...
Only targets,
Only targeted
In ferocious winds
Of battle.

She swept the house;
Sorted through a chicken
To make a *** of soup;
Chopped vegetables,
Boiled another *** of
Vegetable soup;
Broke eggs
And made a quiche;
Drove to work
And balanced all the tills;
Returned home,
Washed the sheets
And pillow cases...
And then she bathed
And went to bed,
Certain that
Her house was clean,
And that
Her family would be fed.

I remember endless miles of dusty gravel,
My bus rider's sweaty hands
Leaving muddy grime,
Gripping rigid seats,
Dreading the monster in back
Whose sudden summons meant abuse:
Swearing,
Spittle,
Thumping heads,
Nameless dreads.

Cruel laughter
From the helpless others'
Deep-drilled belief
That no one cared,
That living through grade school
Meant being scared,
Meant pain in the gut,
Meant years of climbing
Out of isolation.

==================
Brought sweat to my palms as memories returned. I have dedicated my life to providing safety to my students in part due to hard time I spent traveling 80 miles per day over dusty Montana gravel roads on an old yellow bus with a monster in the back seats.... Nearly 50 years later, I may tell the rest of the story, but not yet....

At lunch
My friend told me his dream:
"Jesus, my dad, and I
Were sitting by a fireplace,
Comfortable on soft leather chairs...
And we were smoking.
Dad had his pipe,
I was smoking a cigar,
And so was Jesus."

He laughed;
So did I...
Dreams can be absurd.

"I looked at Dad,
Said, 'You know,
You made my life miserable
Some times'...
And then he looked at me...,
'You made my life
Difficult, too.'"

He stopped and looked hard at me.

He'd had an Epiphany in his dream;
I saw the look in his face:
A coming to terms,
A sort of peace,
An understanding,
A sadding sorrow,
A letting go.

I remembered what he'd told me
When I had shared a dream...
My dreams are only about me...
Not about the people in my dreams.

My introspection ended
When he laughed...
"But that's not all!
We three looked up,
Somehow partners in the dream,
To see mother standing at the door,
And we, all three,
Slid our smokes down to the side
To hide them near the floor."

The twisting tale took us then,
And others in the coffee shop
Looked up from smart phones
To see two Frenchmen laughing.

She was washing dishes,
Putting things away,
Glad for a little quiet after the fray,
Hospital bills would be coming,
Juggling bills to pay,
But she was glad for the quiet today.

Sam came in with dirt on his face
From playing "trucks" on the drive,
And trailing a gritty wet trail
For a cookie or two and some milk with his Mom.

She milk-dunked an Oreo
Looked at her son, and said,
"What shall we do for today?"
To the  milk-mustached boy
Who'd barely made it to five.

"How 'bout checkers?" he asked,
And she looked hard at him,
"Where did you learn how to play?"

"At the doctor's," he said,
As he dipped cookies in,
And startled his mother again.

"Honey, who taught you to play?"

"Max and I played. He showed me how,"
He said with a straight, serious face
As she spilled the milk from her glass.

"Honey, Max has been gone for two years!"

"I know, Mom, and now he is six, and not three.
In heaven, you get to decide.
And Grampa and Gramma came up to say hi,
And numbers were swirling around."

She paused, now uncertain, and mopping up milk,
"So did you see Jesus?" she said.

"Yup, Jesus was there. He said I could visit,
but I had to go back," Sam looked at her matter of fact.
"Can I go play now?" And outside he went,
Brown smudges still stuck on his chin.

Stopping on this spinning orb,
I rest a moment in a limbo room
Waiting to see my eye surgeon.

See him, I must.
I have no options.
The appointment was scheduled
Prior to surgery,
Prior to the removal by suction
Of a lens growing opaque;
Prior to insertion of magical plastic,
Now clipped behind the cornea,
Compensating for myopic astigmatism,
Allowing me to see the whole earth
And this waiting room
Without spectacles,
One eye alive,
One eye yet blind.

I have set upon a two-eyed course
One eye finished,
One eye waiting,
"Stepped in so far,
T'were as tedious to go
Back as to go o'er,"
And though Macbeth
I am not,
I am stepped in
And cannot retrace
The course of two weeks
Past or future.

I am waiting in a room adjacent
A place of temporary fixes...
Arrested momentarily in my flight,
I see a glimpse  
Of life-long fixations,
Not a few delusions....
I am suddenly aware
The sensation
That I am resting here
On a planet that is
Only a waiting room....
That when I leave this room,
I will not have left
The predestined course of life,
That I have not avoided
Coming events
Scheduled just outside,
Set in motion by my choosing.

Just last week he was on his knees
In my mother’s kitchen
Scrubbing the yellow flowers’
Darkened dimples.
“The floor’s still good,
But the wax has darkened.
It’s been in there 30 years now!”
He told me on the phone.

Nothing needed replacing
If there was any usefulness left:
An old floor, or pair of jeans,
An old Ford or length of wire;
Use and re-use,
Or if something were not useful
At the moment,
It was stored (sometimes tagged)
In some haphazard pile for later.

Today we walked out on the place
He lived fifty-four years…
Scratched our heads and
Wondered where to begin.

“You can clean some of this scrap up…
Make some money,”
I say to my farmer brother.
“No!” his quick reply,
“Never know when something
Might come in handy.”

I stand there, looking
At the tottering empire of scrap,
Broken equipment,
Peeling, graying sheds.
I realize that in some ways
Dad isn’t really gone…
That I am the one who has left
The family farm up on the hill
Out in the sun and wind
And the seldom rains.

The darkness had settled as we followed our headlights and looked for a portable sign indicating where we were to turn off the highway and make our way to the Winters’ home.  January, snow on the ground, the coldness of news that the pancreatic cancer was not going away in spite of months of congregational and private prayers, and here we were, making our way to the house to pray.

We arrived and parked along a long gravel lane and then joined a steady line of people walking slowly toward the house – little children with parents, older couples, a few teens. We moved slowly, not sure what to expect, heavy with our thoughts, not speaking. Ahead of us stood the pastor and the house. Arriving, we grasped thin vigil candles and passed the flame from one silent person to the next.  A bit uncertain, we moved to positions around the darkened house, aware that a child was looking out at us into the dark.  Our candles flickered uncertainly in the chill air, and we shielded them with our gloved hands and waited.  

One by one individuals began to pray quietly.  Some spoke sentence long prayers and went silent while others pled tearfully with God for stricken mother, the husband, the little children inside the silent house.  The breeze snuffed flames from the less vigilant, and the line around the house darkened.  We waited in the night. Above us stars shone and the eastern horizon glowed over Minneapolis.  Someone began to whistle an old hymn, “Day by Day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my sorrows here….”  The murmur softened.

The sound of singing drew us back to the front of the house where the pastor was beckoning people to join him in a huddle, to stand with him.  “I feel like a choir leader,” he said, “Come stand with me.”  We moved in next to him.  Those with still burning candles shared the flames, and the entire group was again glowing with candlelight.  We prayed as a group, individuals speaking their hearts to God and the open sky and each other. Prayers moved from individual requests to collective behests – prayers for increased faith in desperate times, prayers for peace and comfort for the family, prayers for steadfast love for God and each other.  Tears wet cold cheeks as people hugged.  

Something good came from that night under the silent sky.  I’m not sure I can put it into words, and I don’t know what God will do with Laurie W, but I am at peace today, after months of unrest and wavering faith.  Under the sky and standing in the snow next to my wife, I thought about those candles and how symbolic their flickering and going out and reigniting is.  When I was standing in the circle around the house, my flame died several times, and thankfully, my wife’s flame reignited mine.  We walked back to the group with candles burning and were able to pass the fire on to others until we all stood in firelight. Alone, any one of us would have been in the dark and out in the cold.  Together, we relit each other’s fires and were warmed by each other’s voices as we called out to God and sang.

We are the Protestant Proletariat
Our revolution is to divide
En masse by fit or fad
To tear down monuments
Destroy traditions
Install new leaders
And vote them down

An unchanging God
We celebrate in changing ways
We leave the old behind
Celebrate we no high masses
Except to exit or to enter
Events and fads and ideologies
We term “movements”

Celebrate we no liturgies
All things new are we
No paean or hymn
We leave untouched
But change the tune
Update the words
To fit the current thought

No vaulted ceilings
Nor Gothic spires we claim
Our sanctuary ceilings are low
Our ceremonies are low
No High Church are we
Protestants have earned a name
And never can remain the same.

(This poem posted in tribute to the life &memory; of Robin Williams...Rest in Peace)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
(Edwin Arlington Robinson)

She followed him out the front door
After his failure to give "a ****,"
Her lonely wail above him soared,
And he turned while she took her stand,
She tried begging him urgently,
"Rhett Butler, please don't go!
Old Ashley's gone as you can see,
And I've done what I didn't know...
Oh, Rhett, won't you come back, please?"

But he kept his word, let not even a moan
Gave no second thought to the dame,
Rode off to a life of wealth on his own...
And drove poor old Scarlet insane.
And O'Hara lived her life half crazed,
Yes, she lived but not very well...
Once you've lost at love, it's the end of your days,
And you cannot unring a cracked Southern Belle.

"You can't."
My father used to say,
And corollaries I have found:

Pull the nails...
The holes remain.

Burn the bridges down...
The pillars stand at water's edge.

Slam the door and go...
Cracks spread out above the frame.

Dust off your feet...
Your footprints will remain.

A rocket launched...
Must surely fall.

Arrows loosed...
Cannot be called back to the string.

A gray hippopotamus lived in a zoo
At the end of the Tropical Line,
Harry the Hippo lived next to the loo
Right by the Northern confines.
With his wide toothy smile,
And his great double chin,
He greeted his neighbors
With a great hippo grin...
Made friends with the deer,
Made friends with an owl,
Avoided the white scowling bear,
Avoided the family of wolves,
(He'd heard they liked to eat meat).
Decided to friend a great, walloping moose,
A challenge, his neighbor seemed rather elite.
Tall and severe with a beard on his chin,
He stood like a tree on his heavy brown hooves,
And branches of antlers stood heavy and grim.

"I see we are neighbors,"said Harry the Hippo,
"Name's Harry," he said with a grin,
"Since it looks like we'll be here a while, ya' know,
I figure we ought to be friends!"

"Bull" Moose only chewed a bit more on his cud,
Burped in the gray hippo's face,
Turned his wide antlers for well and for good...
He spurned the whole hippo race.

But Harry had patience,
Had nowhere to go,
So he waited a week and a month and a day
For Otto the Moose to come 'round,
And he did! And now the two of 'em play.

Our Harry's advice to you is be nice,
And after a while, it comes true....
The balkiest neighbors will have to think twice
And fall into friendship with you.

(0=

Outside, but not so far away,
Missiles are falling;
Early snow has settled
Beneath gray overcast....
Sirens in the distance
Send their low moan
Across the miles...
Echo faintly in our canyon.

Too cold for lightning,
We turn away from light
Flickering or flashing
Upon the bellied skies...
Don't want to think
About the thundering
The light implies.

Muffled sound and muted light
Confirm our living
Away from town.
Perhaps we are
Far enough....
These days, though,
Places to run are few,
And war is moving out.

At least the news has stopped....
Was sporadic
Then...
Stopped altogether
Now.
Almost a relief....

The coal oil lamp -
Her mother's mother's -
Burns a reddish glow...
Diesel's charring smudge...
Comforts us
In a growing dark.

Roast potatoes,
Rabbit stew,
Pickled beets...
No bread this time
As I uncork chokecherry wine...

And it is summer 1999....
We are standing in tall grass
Somewhere between Red Lodge
And Laurel along the road,
Ice cream pails echoing
With plopping chokecherries
Near black and hanging thick
Like miniature clusters of grapes.

We are there to beat the birds and bears,
Knowing choke-cherrying
Is the hurried work of many races,
Some wearing claws upon their heavy hands,
Others flitting in with beaks upon their faces.

And then the kitchen smells of cherries boiling down
For syrups and for jam,
The old ten gallon glass fermenting juice and sugar,
Stands waiting in the corner,
Later to be filtered off and corked away
In twice-used bottles....

Other years and other picking times
Lie bottled  in wooden racks below,
But we have chokecherry wine tonight,
While storms we never thought we'd know
Blow hard against the world.

So many years,
These hands, now old,
Have worked at the table,
kneading and rolling dough,
Testing texture,
Adding raisins,
Walnuts,
Sugar,
Sprinkling cinnamon.

Warming the oven,
Waiting for the dough
To rise,
Sliding trays onto hot racks,
Marking time....

She sits on her walker's chair
Looks up into the camera
"Oh, don't take my picture!"
But how can we not?
Adding these images
To the memories,
To the moment.

The scent of baking bread,
Cinnamon,
Raisins,
Fills the room,
With 40 years' remembering...
Time stops,
Time reverses.

The ones who stopped in...
Dad,
Brother,
Sister,
Gram,
Hired Men,
Grandchildren,
Neighbors passing by...
Some now long gone...
After all, they were
Only stopping in...

"To grab a bite"
On their way to the barn,
On their way by the farm,
On their way to fields,
On their way to the phone,
On their way to town...,
But really to stop
For cinnamon, raisins, walnuts
Twisted into fresh, hot bread,
And a cool glass of milk.

Gymnasiums
Modern battlegrounds,,
Those days...

Blood on the floor,
And spittle.

Rival towns,
White - Red.

Sitting Bull long gone,
Custer long dead.

Native sons,
Sons of pioneers
Still locked in enmities,
Remembrances of treaties broken,
Lying words,
Hatreds long unspoken.

So much of fear
So little trust,
Braggarts claiming coup,
Braggarts thinking war
Through basketball.

So it was one night
I slipped and fell
In a reservation gym,
Heard the hiss and laughter,
Felt the rush of fear...
Anger came.

Before my racist pride
Could grow,
I felt a hand,
Heard a voice,
"You okay?'
Spike Bighorn
Pulled me to my feet
Before a silent crowd.

A quiet act of bravery
That spoke aloud
Made me see the way
Through hate,
Set me on a path
To lead me forty years....

An act of kindness
In a place of fear
Defuses tension,
Ends the wars,
Shames the cowards,
Fills the void
With hope.

-------------------

Light Shows

Wafting up this hill
From the town below
The fetid air this morning,
Whispers sleepily.

We sat here with a crowd
Last night, anticipating
The finale of the Fourth of July,
Expecting colored fire
And fierceness in the sky
To erupt above the lake
As a flotilla of boats,
White and green and red markers glowing
Took their bobbing places
Too far from us to see expectant faces.

The morning grass lies matted,
Littered with bits of celebration:
Candy wrappers,
Bottle caps,
Crushed cans...

Only the motorcycle and I
Overlook the restless trees and water
Uncertain in the morning breeze below....

The fireworks this year amazed us all,
Arcs and constellations
Shattering the air
Drifting off to die in smoking trails,
Whistling curlicues,
Weeping-willow shreds of gold,
Strings of blue and white and red,
Cacophonies of power,
Echoing and echoing again.

And yet, again,
God won the show...
Sent a humble lightning bug
To fly across my grandson's path
And captured, captivated his attention.

While thundering explosions pinwheeled overhead,
An insect blinked his tail,
Walked up young Parker's arm,
Disarmed the bombing of the sky,
Attached a young boy's quick affection,
Earned the title, "Sparky,"
And hitchhiked home
To be released alive and well
On my front lawn.

I drove 150 miles round trip
To hear a friend preach
And see him baptize an infant
This morning.

My friend preached on the Father's love
For the prodigal son...
Said, "The father loves those outside the fold
Every bit as much as those inside the fold!"
Made me remember that the Good Shepherd
Hunted far and near to bring the one lost sheep
Back to the other ninety-nine.

I thought, statistically speaking,
The Good Shepherd leaves no sheep behind,
(A hundred percent salvific rate
I'd call it... Pretty good odds for even
A dumb sheep like me...).

After the ceremony,
Lunching at the family's house,
The older brother of the baptized boy
Looked up at me,
Cake in his mouth,
And asked,"Are you Jesus?"

Took me quite by surprise,
But smiling,
I said, "No, I'm not Jesus!"
He asked, "Where is Jesus?"
His grandfather said,
"He's here!"
Pointing to the little guy's chest.

A little while later,
When his mom sat next to him,
He pointed to his chest,
"Jesus lives in here!"

Sunday sermons...
One in a church,
One in a garage...
I heard two today.
------------------
Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

All day making hay, we watched the empty sky.
Summer heat, clinging shirts soaked, powder caked in dust.
Though we worked a Montana field,
I knew when my father said,
"Hurricane weather."

By two or so, a few small clouds, high and innocent,
Were forming to the west; we did not stop to rest;
A field of second cutting hay down,
Windrows of perfect hay
Fed the tireless machines we rode.

By supper time, a line of gray progressed,
Menacing from north to south and moving east.
"Supper'll have to wait, boys," and Dad was right.
We raced the sky and quickly coming night.

Unnatural calm and breathless air held dust above our rows;
We pressed on, knowing that the winds were on their way.
Bright bolts began to stab across the plain;
We guessed the storm was half an hour away.

The race was nearly finished, our baling nearly done,
When lightning struck around us, sure as any gun.
We looked for Dad, and he baled on, so what to do but follow?
But when the rain and hail fell, our work was done.

Laughing as we ran, we piled into a truck;
Let the tractors stand to face the storm alone
As rain and hail poured  anger at our bales,
And we, the merry balers, headed home.

Knee-deep snow, driven by chilling winds
Blotted out gravel roads and ditches.
Lonely, fence line posts, in rustic rows,
Suffer hoary white in the winter sun.

Only brave or needful venturers brook cold
When wind-free mercury reads 25 below,
But out we went to winter pastures,
Heavy with feed, the old truck,
Tires chained and shovels at the ready
Clawed its way out seven miles to pasture,
And, later, seven miles back.

We boys were riding for the lark,
Enjoying risks, adventures bold
With Dad behind the wheel, no storm or wind
Could stop us, and we scorned the cold.

A hard pull took us up the road one mile,
Til, at the corner, into the lane we headed east
To see old Charlie's truck nosed into the snow.
His neighbors, we stopped to check, at least.

Asleep, too drunk to drive, old Charlie slumbered at the wheel.
"We have to get him out," we said, but Dad just shook his head.
"He's safe right here, stuck in the snow, with half a tank of fuel.
"We'll feed the cows and pull him out if he's still here when we come back.
Perhaps he'll sober up by then, and he'll go home."

How many times we left old Charlie sleeping in a ditch
Between his house and town, I cannot count today.
Sometimes, I think, we saved his life by leaving him
To sleep the vapors off, and other times by taking him away.

Plain woman in a checkered dress,
Trapped on a windy hill
With a man whose every thought
Was crops and cows
And bad weather coming,
You cooked every meal
On time,
Served lunches to the field
Exactly when the clock said "12."

More though,
You drove "flagger" to the men,
Moved trucks and tractors to the fields,
Raised two boys and two girls,
God-fearing citizens,
Buried one in disbelief,
And then moved on
To the routine.

I know your secret, though.
That swept-neat farm:
White buildings,
Green roofs,
Red barns
Belied you in their unnatural order.
You of the Romantic Heart,
You of passion and desire held secret.
Beside your chair in that sparse house
Stood a stack of romance novels
In easy reach
To lend escape
To harsh realities.

Ah! The stolen moments!
Pink-hued bliss of passions,
Handsome strangers,
Waiting there beside your chair
To free you
Of a dry and wind-whipped land.

What pleasures you enjoyed
You stole from books.

What ecstasies you managed,
Came ninety-nine cents a copy,
Wrapped in brown paper,
In a galvanized milking pail,
Five miles from the post office.

Lydia, don't fret.
Don Quixote's spirit
Understands.

All through the night
Heartburn kept him sitting up
Stubbornly refusing
To read the signs:
Indigestion...
Heart attack...
Hiatal hernia....
Indigestion...
Hernia...
Heart attack...
Heart attack..
Heart attack.

By five, he agreed...told Mom
Baking soda wouldn't work.

His son came in from checking calves,
Worrying over the kitchen light,
Surprised to see his dad
Still sitting on the couch.

At, "I guess we could go to town,"
Son and wife moved into action.

"I need some help to dress," he said.
His helplessness filled them with dread.

First, some socks, but wait....
The nails were long, unkempt.
"I haven't been able to bend that far,"
My brother took Dad's feet in hand,
Cut the nails,
Wondering how he'd failed
To see how fragile, pale, old
This man we loved and feared
Had somehow suddenly become.

There probably wasn't time
To trim Dad's nails,
What with the heart attack,
And all.
But one should never head to town unkempt...
An old familial rule...
And one should cut one's own nails...don't even ask...
Another family rule....
And last...
Father has the last word...
The rule that kept him home all night,
Instead of calling 911.

Art Bouchard,
My father,
Never marched a drill,
Nor fired an angry shot...
Recounted fond memories
I've heard so many times:
How long ago, when I was very young,
He and our neighbor,
Art Pribnow,
Up before the sun,
Engaged in tractor battles
(Dad was very sure he won).

My father woke those mornings,
Early 1960s,
With the popping cough of
Worn diesel pistons
Clattering out white smoke...
Then blue and black,
As engine heat and friction
Tightened gaps,
Sealed compression,
And the motor steadied into an even roar.

Across the county road
Our only neighbor led or followed suit,
Sending smoke and sound
To drown the morning songs
of meadowlarks and robins.

Fifty years later,
Dad laughed in recollection,
"We started rising just a little
Earlier each day.
Started up our tractors
In a sort of game
Called, 'Who's out first?'"

Six became a quarter of,
Then five-thirty backed to four.
One tractor or the other roared,
Early and then earlier
To be the first to pull
Into the waiting fields.
When three-thirty came around
My mother shook her head,
But if she said a word,
I never heard.

These battling neighbors
Even started engines up
Before they ran,
Milking buckets swinging,
to their barns to chore
As early became earlier
in the little farmers' war.

One day in town,
By happenstance,
A meeting came between the two.
My father, being younger,
Had energy for more,
But old Art Pribnow shook his head,
Grabbed my dad's hand and said,
"Let's stop this foolishness
Before one of us is dead!
I don't know about the hours you keep,
Or what got in our heads,
But I admit, I need my sleep!"

The farmer battle ended then.
A hand shake and a smile
Between two farmer friends,
Created country lore,
Remembered here a little while,
As, "The Early, Earlier War."

The clock was protected from change in your house.
No Daylight Savings Time admitted to your routines.
We who bordered your life had to adjust or miss your timing.
Your farm the antipodes of ours...straight and neat,
Everything where it ought to be,
No duplication or mess....
A feast for my order-hungered eyes.
I had not yet learned of obsessive-compulsiveness;
I only despised my father's clutter,
His refusal to wear time upon his wrist,
His stubborn old World ways.

I shoveled barley half a hot and muggy day
To load your truck,
Emerged tired, covered with dust,
Raging in a million itches
To receive fifty cents
"To take your girlfriend out."
Most ungrateful, I chafed,
Told anyone who listened...
But now, I smile,
Wishing my labor to have been
A gift, now long ago.

I fell in love with John Deere tractors, gleaming green,
Colored television,
Fresh paint, white and red,
Because of you
Standing in striped Osh Kosh bibs,
Penultimate farmer.

Lydia, your wife,
Danced to the metronome
Of your orderly life,
Escaped only in Harlequin novels
Stacked by her chair.

Until the day everything changed,
Pink drool trailing from your mouth,
Gears grinding as you lost
The memory of clutches,
Tractor care,
Crops to plant
Be ******...
A stroke was taking down another man.

A Saturday we moved your wife to town
Near where you convalesced;
Monday, the Baptist preacher found her.

You ordered mahogany, rich and prime,
For us to bid your Lydia farewell,
Then followed, true to form,
Within the month.

Your children ordered oak, solid and strong,
Wheat sheaves bedeck the top,
Inlaid and waiting,
Ready for the coming harvest.

South Pacific 1944,
Our ship under attack,
Men at the guns,
Zeroes coming in.

Smoke and bedlam,
We three at our turret
Loading the gun:
Projectile.
Powder,
Fuse,
and slam the door
to belch explosives
at the sky.

Man the post
Keep on firing

But then I knew I had to go
And turned toward the hatch.
"Good-bye, Paul,"
I remember someone said.

Half in - half out the door
We took a hit
Direct
That blew Jim's head
between my knees
And on the deck.

Two died instantly
And there I stood
Wondering
About
Higher Orders.

Living under the watchful ticking,
Your "Regulator" clock kept time;
Mercantile calendar days running down.

I never knew you to complain
A day in all your life.

Art Pribnow married you,
Removed you to a little place
West of the Yellowstone River
To farm and set the world in order.

Probably the sun
Checked his schedule
Right over head by seeing laundry
Hanging in straight strung rows
Beside the sharp white buildings,
No stone out of its place.

Only Order
Everywhere, but...
I wonder sometimes.

Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.

I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.

"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.

Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

Who found he had
Nothing
To Say....

The road winds ahead
I think.
In truth,
I cannot with my human senses tell;
Thick fog and rain and dread...
This path might lead
To the bottom of a well
Or worse...to Hell.
But no, the way behind me led to Hell,
And I have turned my back,
Begun my pilgrim way.

What directions I can find
Point in the way I head,
And mired as I am,
I cannot stay
Nor stand and wait
Nor can I turn retreat...
Been there before...
There's nothing good to eat,
And nothing there
To give me peace,
So I press on.

Push on I must,
For I have heard
Somewhere high above me
An eagle cry,
The promise of a clearing sky,
A vantage point to find
If I have wings.

Blackbirds chuckling in the arbor vita;
Vultures circling high
Against the blue and Sunday sky;
House sparrows scolding in the neighbors' trees;
A robin chorister brings Dickinson to mind,
And I don't mind.

Sunday morning's breakfast's done,
And we have time
To smile a little...
Bashful mornings
Just a little now
Even after thirty years.

Tomorrow storms will come;
Next week a tree will fall;
Shadows must make their surly steps
Even as sun slides down...
It's just the way this old world runs.

But this morning,
This Sunday morning,
Bright and fine,
I rest from all my worrying,
Rest in the love I have with you,
Amazed again to have,
Amazed to hold,
A girl like you.

Broke with the tinkling of chimes,
Bird melodies cacophonous,
And dew-wet sunlight
A million years old, and new again,
As this old world turned round
And brought me back to day.

The dreams and fears of night
Fell all away;
The dog barked out his morning bark
To call me out to play.
Breakfast down and leash a-fixed
W'e were on our way.

A yearling pup's the thing
To take a man's old heart
Right back to spring:
An angle worm,
A water puddle,
And grass to roll in,
The neighbor's dog,
The fire plug....

Who knew the joy of messages
Left on rock and trees?
And joy is found in lifting ears
And nose to test the breeze.

The secret that I think I understand?
It's not the dog who needs the walk;
The leash is for the man
To work out kinks from life
And see the little things
That dogs can see
Without the need to think.

We've set a precedent:
Traded Bergdahl for five Terrorists...
The deal is done.

Questions hovering above and below...
How many loyal lives were lost
To bring a lone deserter back?

How many lives will go because
Five terrorists walked free?

Did Bergdahl set up the deal
To set a precedent
To set up a President?
Were the five men picked to trade
By Us or Them?
Who's running the show?
Who's to blame?
And Whom shall we say is calling
The shots, and who can say
How many lives were paid
For one who just deserts?

Incoming!

Unshaven, old, and nearly spent,
He slouched in his kitchen chair,
Lungs rattling each wheezing breath,
Radiation doing little then,
To control the mass within, or
To prevent the Mass he knew
Would soon begin.

Hard to believe a man
So tough as Rubin always was
Sat stubble-faced and wan
In that early morning sun.

Two years ago,
At 65,
He and his son
Put a ****** on,
Fought a cop,
Nearly won,
Stayed a week in jail,
Paid a $7000.00 fine,
Then bragged it all
Was worth the time
And memories.

I saw him jump,
At 66,
From a moving van,
Six feet up
Like a younger man,
Hell bent to take his fill,
Shovel hard, cursing still,
Cigarette hanging loose
Even with a rattling cough
(He shrugged it off),

And stop.
Always 67,
His last remains crave no nicotine,
No *****, wayward fights,
No carousing old man libertine
Out with his son at night,
And we who watched Old Rubin's days,
Paid our respects and went our ways.

Barely liquid, spitting Spring,
Clear, cold and wet, it clings...
This changeling Life that
Drenches hills and hollows,
Blackens bark in glistening sheen,
Brings mosses to a glowing green,
Shivers calves and lambs, newborn,
Melts the snow and frost, forlorn,
Fills ponds and lakes to overflow,
Erases muddied banks of dying snow.

Later, Summer moves at summer speed,
Urging throbbing plants to seed,
Bustling bees to waken work of flowers
Setting fruit with watering summer showers,
But Spring's cold rain moves buds to swell,
Ruffles robins where they quivering dwell,
Bares branches as they shake and tease,
Standing sleepily for sticky leaves.

So I must shiver out a few wet and chilly days,
Hold fast as Winter, grumbling, slow, demurs,
Knowing Spring's blustery, watery ways
Finesse the cold away and beckon Summer.

We sit,
Witnesses
To Immolation,
Acknowledging Death.
Vap'rous vows now vanished;
Infidelity preceding
The wedding day,
Following after,
Covered deftly under
Lies compounding lies,
One holding true,
One never so,
And so we sit over
Coffee and Divorce,
Now that the truth is out.

We sit,
Witnesses to small talk:
"You may have the furniture";
"Insurance ends in May";
"Do you have a question?"
"There's nothing left to say."

We sit;
She leaves;
Her emptiness
Remains;
We three sit tight,
Uncertain,
Nothing left to say,
But still we sit musing
Coffee and Divorce.

Portia and Bassanio

Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned

Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.

Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.

Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.

All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.

King Minos,
Spited by the God of Oceans,
Hesitated but a while
Before poor Pasiphae's bull-headed son
Was penned inside the labyrinth,
And then, as if to throw away the key,
Inventor Daedalus and his dear son
Were for their work a prison tower fee'd.
But they grew wings, for as we know,
An inventor's work is never done...
If only Icarus had listened
And kept a proper place below the sun,
Breugel's painting would have lost
Its distant splashy focal point;
The plowman and the shepherd would
Have stood alone above a perfect sea.

Old Minos never had a chance,
And though the cunning Hunter,
(He, who found the man who
Made a string crawl curving
Through a shell behind an ant),
Had won... decided to disrobe
And take a dip...a foolish act
To choose when Daedalus
Would serve a hot revenge.

Daedalus, who knew the score,
Burned wood to make the water soar;
In vengeance vented spiteful wrath,
And cooked old Minos in his bath.

Can scuttle shade to shade,
A bolting spider
Bringing back the day
My father died
So unexpectedly?

April 2nd,
April 2nd,
Twice
And down again
And scurrying unseen
To thrice.

How is it Time
Can simultaneously,
Throb slowly on
From troubled day
To troubled day,
An angling worm,
Obstinately crawling
Through stubborn clay?

The bull still stands
Out in our yard,
Snorting puffs of steam,
Posing in his threatening stance,
Muted but a little...

He and we
Now
Biding time.

A man's not safe,
Nor woman, either,
So long as this bull's out,
Free to move about
Unpenned.

This meeting of the mice
We hear about
To solve the the problem of the cat
Inspires us now...
To bell the cat...
To pen the bull....

Aye, there's the rub....
As who shall bell the cat,
And who shall pen the bull?

For  now, we go our quiet ways,
Eyes down
Still thinking,
Praying...some,
Contemplating penning up
The bull.

How can I ever lose the memory:

A Model T Ford,
Tires tied with wire and rags,
Arriving loud, but slow,
Rattling as it came,
Steaming as it stopped
At our family farm,
The ancient Ford
John R drove whenever he must go
So far as not to carry self
On short and stocky legs.

The sturdy legs that drove the peddles;
The stubby fingers played
Our family's old pump *****,
While he led in his cracked voice,
And merry German tongue,
"Du, Du, liegst mir im Hertzen,"
While we tried to sing,
"Du, du liegst mir im Herzen
du, du liegst mir im Sinn.
Du, du machst mir viel Schmerzen,
weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin.
Ja, ja, ja, ja, weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin."

My mother smiled as she sang,
Moistened eyes the only clue
That she recalled her mother's voice
Inside the song.

A one-room shack
Beside a cattle tank
Out on the prairie
Near our ranch,
Was all he knew of home,
And we, his neighbors,
Loved the little man
Who'd bachelor-ed it
Out on the Western plains.
Not that he had much...
Borrowed electricity
From the power lines feeding
The watering pump;
Cooked and heated with
An old coal stove
My father kept supplied
with hand dug lignite
From a nearby mine;
Treasured German conversation
With the dwindling few
Who knew his mother tongue
(I still can hear him praying
Though I never knew a word).

Spoiled and modern,
I did not know til I was older
How he walked four winter miles into town
To buy a bag of groceries:
Flour, salt, baking soda,
A few canned goods
Sometimes an orange or two,
To stay alive until the path would
Let the old Ford through.

His brother Max, was long since gone.
Alone, John lived in ragged clothes,
A relic of the past,
Widowed, and his children gone,
Holding his ground,
His tar-papered shack,
Making it to church
Or to our place a few miles up the way,
A gentle man, humble in his ways.

At 90 (I cannot forget),
He rode my bicycle;
My brother and I
Stood prop until his short legs
Could pump the pedals.
He circled round us,
An ancient man who shook
And wobbled like a little boy,
Silent in the joy of two wheels running,
And then he fell aside,
Going down like a tree sliced clean,
Falling slowly over on his side.
We ran to him, afraid, just boys
Not reckoning the harm he might have earned.
But, no, we helped him up,
And he brushed off and laughed
His German laugh, and his eyes
Twinkled.

What a man he was!
And is, now in my mind,
Ninety, plus,
To take himself up on a bicycle;
To fall, unbroken,
And to rise,
A smile on his lips,
And twinkling in his eyes.

"First day of Spring tomorrow!"
The Weather Teller says....

Outside, the Death of Winter
Drags along,
Over-acted, under-cut, and slow...
Decaying, ***** piles freshed again
In wet and heavy snow
While water fowl vee North,
Circling low to find slim-margined waters
Lining shores and cupping
Cakes of ice the size of lakes,
Brooding in their rotten state,
And waiting Orders from the Sun,
Whose work it is to usher Spring
In all her greening garb to stand
And bless the annual Burgeoning.