For a year or possibly more,
Decompression begins:
Purging electricity, electronics.
Fall away, Internet, Oh!
No more cellular,
**** the television set,
Except, perhaps, a radio,
Lest I totally forget....

Hello, paper,
Hello, books,
Come off the shelves;
Lose those ***** looks,
Warm again before my eyes,
Feel the press of my writing stick.

Thoreau, the fakir,
Left the social order
Just a year,
Though just how far
He really went
Remains foggily unclear,
And the fact that he returned
Suggests that Nature
Left him feeling burned.

So, like a diver,
Rising from the deep,
I'd take a while to meditate,
To let the busyness-es go
And put electric dreams to sleep.

Your brain is plugged and foggy;
Your mind is on the freaking fritz;
The poetry is lost and boggy;
You hold your pen in woolen mitts.

Try a senryu about your life
Or a haiku on the froggy pond;
Cut through bloc de l'auter with a knife,
And slog out of the slough, Despond.

Sometimes it helps to focus long
On a single spot on the wall of life
And see what image comes along...
(I like to think of my pretty wife).

This writer's block's a funny thing
Tied somehow to the lives we lead,
And sterile writers need a fling
To let their stubborn poems breed.

So walk a while, or take a Jeep;
Visit the county fair...
Milk a cow or shear a sheep;
Wear flowers in your hair.

Or be like me and go take a nap;
Read a good book, or call an old friend;
Some poems are babies not yet in the lap,
Developing elsewhere, somewhere in the When....

Be sure they'll show up when they're ready to shine;
They'll trip off your fingers; they'll flow like red wine;
They'll sparkle or spark, or they'll whimper and cry,
But your poems will arrive, and I'm telling no lie.
Be patient, Good Allys..., the block's not an end,
Your poems are waiting ahead, 'round the bend.

Between the Author
And the Reader,
The Text lies waiting.

The Author,
Only partially aware
Of All Intents and Purposes
In spite of careful diction,
Forms a multi-messaged bolt
To drive full meaning
Home.

The Text,
Scripted in language,
Printed on paper,
Inked in pixels,
Floated in air,
Carries meaning
in a leaking bucket
Denoting and Connoting
Implications only.

The Reader,
Seeking something
Not even realized,
Comes partially engaged,
Intent to dabble
Or to glean
Or find some thought
On which to meditate.

Somehow in this tenuous state
Between mortal thinkers,
Ideas cross synaptic bridges -
Through the air and light,
Tempered by time,
Culture-cured,
Enriched by vocabulary,
Electrically ignited...
Combustion!

I know why Adam chose
to go with Eve,
To stay beside the one
he'd come to love,
Though he believed
Life and Death's incision
Hung in the balance
of his imminent decision.

He took and ate
the offering from his Mate.
In Life, in Death,
the two were mated,
And for all time,
their seed was fated...
Deadly plantation
of love and sin,
This Reaper's Field
we're living in.

Before he damns him,
I believe,
A man must stand
in Adam's skin
And gaze on Eve.

She sits there,
Fingers entwined,
Face showing her tangled mind.
"I don't know what to write,"
She states, and follows,
"I don't have anything interesting
To say."

I ask her what she loves...
Sometimes it's horses,
Sometimes law,
Sometimes children,
Sometimes God,
Sometimes....
Always
Something that she loves.

And when she talks,
Her eyes grow bright,
Revealing memories,
To be nudged and wheedled,
Poked a bit and needled,
To find that sliver and
Extract the thought
On which to write.

Then off she goes to compose,
To start a journey up the path
We both hope leads to a diploma,
A job, a career, an opportunity.

When she is gone, I sit and muse....
I am a father and grandfather now,
Still adjusting training wheels and
Giving that first push,
Still patching skinned up knees,
Pulling slivers...
Sending children on their way.

"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.

Under frizzed hair,
The Conscious Operator,
Smacking gum,
Waits with her tails of living wire
To make connections
At Synaptic Central.

The reader
Tilts a page to catch the rays,
Scans for symbols,
Begins to send
And to receive
Electric fires of thought
Traveling in from
Senses Five -
Traveling out from
Schema Library's
Data files -
To meet and
To commingle
At the Board.

With octopal finesse,
The tireless Operator
Plies Neural Central,
Sending quick myriads of thought
To rest or to revive in living files.

Neurons snap and arc;
Their coded leaping fires
Surge message-full
Through cables sheathed
To Synapse Central,
Where in her nimble hands
Fire Control finds slots
And coordinates connections,
During and Long After
The Outward Reading's done.

Even when the Blinds go down
Synaptic Central's work goes on.
The frizz-haired friend steps out to rest;
Sub-Conscious moves into her place
And with unsteady hand
Plays seeming havoc at the Board
Rearranging and Deranging
Delightful dreams, or horrid.

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.

The girls had just come in from gathering fuel,
Laid the frozen cow pats in the box
Beside the stove,
Went in to wash for supper.

The old house creaked beneath a towering wind
Gray-full of promise that driving snow was on the way,
But though it shook, the shingles stayed;
The smoldering fire warmed and cheered
The children as they stamped their feet to chase the cold away,
Hands outstretched to catch the radiant heat.

A distant cloud of war in Europe loomed,
Sinister, though far, the children vaguely knew,
By catching whispered grown up conversations....
Though not yet reality for German-Russian Mennonites
Now Montana farmers on the eastern plains
To which they'd run to find a peaceful space
To settle far from persecution.

Before the supper washing and the setting of the plates,
Grandmother moved to catch the evening news,
Turned a dial to set the tubes aglow
And warm the wireless magic in the radio.

Crackling to life, a man's voice said, "Achtung!"
Early winter, 1938 on Montana's wind-blown plains,
The evening news presented ******'s venomed speech
Declaring war and warnings and impending dooms.

Mesmerized, my German grandma stood,
Suddenly cold inside the warm kitchen,
Staring out the window toward the barn,
Tears running down her cheeks,
Her children gathered round.

"Mama! Mama! What is the matter?"
My mother begged to know,
tugged upon her mother's apron,
Wondered at the power of words
To make her mother cry.

"That man has terrible power!"
Was all my grandma said, trying to be calm,
Then turning back to ready table
Before the men came in for supper.

Seventy-five years later,
Sitting at the kitchen table on the farm,
My mother's voice trails off...
******, and her mother...
How many millions gone?

Powerful within the room,
The memory rests.
Outside, the same wind blows;
Only absent snow-gray clouds
Beneath the ice-blue skies.

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.

Classes start today; summer's met its end,
The books lie waiting once again upon the shelf
To share the lie that education is the path for everyone
To happiness and wealth.

Those who will and those who won't succeed
File in and settle down, day one,
Segregated, aggregated in their rows of need,
Stamped by labels and by scores.

The gauntlet lies before them:
Papers, deadlines, speeches, tests
To find the laurel winners.
And to **** the needy rest.

"Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed,"
Old Emily once said, and she'd be right to say it once again
About the battlefields in every school I've been.

This fall I'm taking time to hear
My students' goals and dreams,
Their challenges and hopes,
To say "I see you with my eyes."
I hope to see their hopes arise.

The race is to the steady, Aesop said,
The plodders beat the plotters in their way,
If we who have the gate keys in our hands
Encourage strugglers to stay.

Five years to the day your heart attack began.
Thinking of you, my own chest hurt;
I imagined pain in my shoulders,
Felt the weariness of years...
Even shed some tears.

April Fools Day, 2012, long on the shelf,
Returns fresh, cuts like a blunt knife,
Tears my innards; causes me to gasp...
The phone call of your imminent demise
Returns to mind,
Drives the blade to the hasp.

Heavy days, these April Fools'
Not the tom-fool days they used to be.
These are days to shake my core,
To stomp and worry my heart sore,
And ask if I'll live through many more.

The end of the road behind
The step from the cliff above and behind
The swirling of smoke and no fire left
The bottom of the whirlpool twisting from sight
The emptiness after the slap, before the welt outswells
The end game of every philosophy: ab nihilo, entre nihilo
The logical declension through insanity to catatonia
Thought leading to the nth degree without the subsequent, "Oh!"

Critical thought without foundations
Building without bedrock
Runaway locomotive, off the tracks
Leaving home without good-bye and no way back

"Don't buy me pretty presents. Write a poem for me instead."
But nothing whispered in my ear, so out I went to clear my head,
Considering words to write her.

I found a mug from her alma mater, bound it in air wrapping,
A gift of love that might hold water, coffee (weak), or Christmas seasoning:
A cup of love and note of cheer.

So, Mother, Dear, this Birthday poem's for you, but just in part,
A poetic message from your Minnesota crew, to cheer you as you start
With vim and vigor, ninety years!

Love Always,

Don and Melody

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.

You Gentiles,
Unwashed, unclean,
Prepare for war,
Come vent your spleen.

Beat the plowshares into swords,
Your harvest tools to mighty weapons,
Feel the surging doom and think you strong,
Gather  in the Valley of Decision,
The Valley of Jehoshaphat,
Where stand we all for judgment.

The Sun, the Moon, go dark;
The Stars remove their shine,
And full earth shakes beneath
The coming doom,
Before the lasting Peace
Descends on Israel.

Hill and fields people, these,
Gathering in their Sunday best
At a chapel in the valley'd hills
To sing God's praises acapella:
Women, cap'd  and apron'd,
Suspendered men in beards,
Children flushed from playing tag
Beneath the shade of dry land trees.

Paper fans wave off the heat;
Down runs the trickled sweat.
Melodious voices keep a beat,
To rhythms time cannot forget.

Gray and cracked old concrete floor,
Crude old splintering stage,
Modern luxury we need no more
To praise the God of Ages.

Four-part harmony
Sung sweet and clear
Fills the chest,
Swells the air,
Relieves the soul
Of earthly care.

These men,
These women,
Raise the paean
Of humbled hearts,
Of thriving souls,
To heaven.

Fifteen years
These chimes have hung
Silent or clanging
To tell me the breeze
Is here or gone.

The bell tubes
Ring their mindless cheer.
Peacefully they bring
Me to the calm of emptiness.

The mindful other-where-ness,
I sense a kind of zen
But can't quite ken.

Making peace in the presence
Of a restless uncertainty,
Wind chimes ring.

At first light, Easter Sunday morning,
The lilies on my mother's table
Trumpet Resurrection.
Not far from me,
My father's ashes, cool now,
Begin their dusty settling,
While I contemplate
The Resurrection.

"Don't try heroic means!"
He'd tell us.
"I'm old ... used up."
He even told me once
That if we found him in a home,
Lost in a coma,
That I must smother him.
(I told him no.)

I know what he meant, though.
"Do not resuscitate!"
To him, and now to me,
Requested no annihilation,
But declared his hope of Resurrection...
The Savior's gentle nudge to bring
A glorious morning's waking
Other where:
Shedding worn old limbs,
Renewing battered heart,
Erasing a million sins,
Though long forgiven,
Still borne on earth -
Consequential scars
Of living.

Easter Sunday morning,
My father's death, still fresh,
Brings me to affirm,
Christ died for sinful men
So they might live again.

But at this moment the Messiah stands risen from the dead, the first one offered in the harvest of those who have died. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. (I Corinthians 15:20-21)

db April 8, 2012

In final autumn heat,
Two weeks after apple picking,
The bushel baskets sag,
Laden with the summer's pickings.

Growing sadness clings to me.
I sort the dead and dying
From the thinning lot,
Fearing loss of all to rot.

The first to go,
Soft and brown,
Nearly fall apart,
Require gentlest touch;
Dripping cadavers
Leave healthier neighbors
Wet, in danger of early death.
In separating them,
I hold my breath.

On spotted skins I then
Must concentrate;
Look for inner decay:
Sagging indentations,
Fallen stems;
Hollowed caverns
From bird bites and beetles;
The evidence of worms'
Varicose trails, faintly brown,
Just visible beneath the skins,
Revealing company within.

My eye looks inward first, then out.
I know what this malingering's about;
The cankers that I seek may find me out.

Hesitation clouds my separations;
I wonder what a paring knife might do
To save some portion,
To spare the summer work
Of apple trees.

I wonder, does the apple
Dread the knife, considering strife
As much as I, when I confess my sin
And writhe beneath the penance
My sinning puts me in?

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.

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.

Plagium

"There! See that lad beside the stall?"
The master pointed straight his riding quirt,
"The little lad with the home-made ball?"

I nodded, weary, standing slouched, inert.

"We'll make him ours before the day is done,"
I heard his lordship gloat, and wished myself away,
Remembering the day the plaga caught me as I tried to run.

No use to tell him what I thought - no use to even pray.

And so we lured the boy to see a novelty just up the street,
And cast our nets about him and rolled him in the dust
Into a rug and carried him out, bound hands and feet...

Another slave boy in the master's house who cries at dusk,

Missing home and mother's arms and small delights;
His homely past an awful ache, though low and poor,
A place of love and hope and soft, familial sights

My slaving Master Plagiarus ripped away forevermore.

Beware!
Your love boat feasts
May smash upon the jagged reefs
Lurking among you,
Within your ranks,
Fearless, they lie,
Brooding and biding,
Content to feed on you
As you love everyone
In innocence.

Waterless virga,
These empty clouds
Promise and pretend
To be more than wind.
They are dry.

Thickets and groves
Promising fruit,
Their leaves will soon fall,
No nourishing yield
At all.

They are wild waves,
Unpredictable,
Huge and swelling,
Frothing with folly.

Stars, these wanderers,
Hurtling in their burning light,
Hell-bent toward
Oblivion.

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.

I remember 35
Like it was 25 years ago.

I had hair then.
Was in my eighth year of teaching.
Had four children at home,
A dog.
A cat.

Unbounded energy,
Exuberance,
Passion,
Conviction

Stress fed my bones,
Canceled my fears,
"Work harder
Before the night falls!"

Night is falling.
Sixty is nearly here.
I am nearly gone,
And yet you linger,
A soul standing in periphery.

35.
What is the point of living
If the past cannot be left,
And the present stand still
To let us dress each other's wounds,
Forgive our others' sins,
Let us, limping as we are,
Move toward the center,
Again to begin?

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.

Stories of the pranks we'd done
Moved quickly round the table:
Eric's water balloon  story:
Teen boys driving around water bombing cars
Running red lights to escape an enraged convertible driver...
Wide-eyed son hearing his father's indiscretions for the first time
(Father and Grandfather trying to spin the story to teach a lesson).

Dad's vinegar breakfast drink:
The visiting preacher ******* down a breakfast gulp
Of cider vinegar that drained his face to pale,
Sent him running for the toilet,
Made him ill enough to whisper from the pulpit
(No good explanations, only gasping laughter).

Then came my story of "the stolen VCR":
Staging a robbery in our mall-parked car,
Frightening my wife and her mother into tears,
Bringing telephonic anger to my withering ears;
Laughter turned to silence as the table turned to see
My sweetheart's mother glaring hard at me....
And words revealed the anger fresh again
From thirty years' brooding....
(At loss for words, I asked forgiveness once again).

The fact that father and grandfather and great-grandfather
Had done stupid things accentuated the heat of
Great grandmother's rage.
Children and adults sat fidgeting...
Awkward stillness brought the evening down....

My attempt to teach and bring to rest by looking at the failure
Of 30 years' consequence for a foolish prank that I had done
May serve as worthy instruction for a grandson who has
Mischief in his eyes.
"Before you do a thing, look ahead to see
What consequences there may be!"
(My feeble sermon to a wide-eyed grandson).

I left the table reflecting on the meaninglessness
Of empty words,
Felt again the hopelessness of meeting standards,
Realized that forgiveness hadn't happened,
Reveled in the glow of knowing my wife was standing
Beside me in the heat of the moment,
Reflected that consequences
Follow every foolish thing,
Every action that we take.

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.

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.

Feel like dancing,
I.

If Dr. Who
Can
Boogaloo,
Then
So
Can
I.

Rose
Is
A
Rose
Is
A
Rose,
As
Dr. Who
Knows.

And dance on the bridge
Of the TARDIS,
They
Did.

Enough
Now
Of
Dooms
And
Emergency
Weathers....

We Dance
Hilarious
Dances
On the TARDIS
Bridge.

Tomorrows
We
Cannot
Imagine
Before
And
Yesterdays
Behind.

We
Pause
for
A
MO...

And
Just
Dance.

A thousand miles west of me
She lies in a nursing home bed,
Oxygen and medications
Prolonging the end of a well-lived life.

This night, the weariness settles around me,
A grim comfort promising sleep,
If only I may close my eyes in surrender....
As if my staying awake somehow sustains her.

Eldest of her sons,
Sometimes wise,
Sometimes wiseacre,
Sometimes a visioning prophet,
Sometimes a fumbler in the dark,
I am empty of words tonight.

What wisdom have I now
When wisdom's called for?
Decisions to be made, and naught to say:
I'd give my kingdom for the wisest way.

Oh, I have prayed,
Have pleaded with the skies....
I suffer in the silent darkness.
Knowing Mother's youth and strength are spent;
Time's inexorable turning pulls her in,
Body nearly gone, reason razor thin
Tell me her fight's a battle Time will win.

But now, while the hovering remains,
The wretched anguish overhangs my soul,
And memories of Mother, young and strong,
Tireless and loving, industrious, filled with song,
Make poignant my pre-mourning hours.

Enoch, prophet of the Living God,
Enoch, walker with God,
Seven generations from Adam,
Prophesied,
"The Lord,
With thousands of holy ones,
Came executing judgment.

"All unjust and ungodly ones
Whose unjustified castigations
Against God Himself
Have reached His ears
Stand now in judgment."

Their motives are exposed;
Their grumbling arrogance,
Their cavilling fault-finding
No longer hide
Their flattering lies,
Their avaricious lusts.

They are exposed.

These grumblers,
Enoch said,
Walk in their own desires,
Arrogant flatterers
Taking advantage  of others,
Attempting to divide the family of God
Because they do not believe,
Because they do not have the Spirit.

But you, the Body of Christ,
The Family of God,
Continue to build in holy faith,
Praying in the Spirit,
Keeping in the love of God,
Expecting the mercy of the Lord,
Jesus Christ,
Who gives us eternal life.

Have mercy on doubters;
Save others by snatching them
From the licking flames of Hell.

Fearing for others,
Have mercy for them,
Without allowing yourselves
To be made filthy,
Keeping yourselves
From being drawn into
Their addictions and their sins.

Glory, Majesty, Power, Authority
Are HIS forever:
Before time began:
Past, Present, Future,
And He is the only One able
To protect you from falling,
To provide you legs to stand
In His Glorious Presence.

He is the only One who makes
You blameless,
Who fills you with joy,
Who is able to save you
Through His Son,
Jesus Christ,
Our only Lord,
Now and Forever.

Amen.

Finding myself away from you,
I wonder now
How we survived
Pre-cell phone,
Pre-Internet
Pre-instant
Everything.

Then I remember
Poets of the past
Whose lovers waited
Months,
Or even years....

Napoleon's letter to his Joséphine de Beauharnais,
Having been away on campaign for months,
"Coming home in three days...."
(And then his coded lover's words.)

Or Donne's "Valediction Forbidding Mourning,"
Reminding her of love's elasticity, fine as beaten gold,
Before he left his wife to journey far;

Or Ezra Pound's translation of the letter
From the Chinese merchant's wife
Whose love had driven her to journey
As far as Cho Fu Sa....

I realize the softness of my day,
The way 21st Century love hangs
Eternal or ephemeral,
Electrically upon the ethereal air...

Commit myself again to you.
Thirty-two years is
A long time and a short time
In the scope of centuries of lovers,
An eternity of generations who remember
Better loves in spite of harder lives.

My love is all for you.

He didn't see the patch of ice;
She had closed her eyes for just a bit.
When she looked,
Guardrails tearing...
No time to shout,
Windows blowing out,
Merciful airbags slamming oblivion
Through muffled thudding
sliding,
rolling,
plummeting
plummeting
down.

Silence....

"Some day, if we die at the same time,"
His mother had said,
"We want to be together in the grave."

An ominous request, that,
And one to be perused, ignored,
Revisited now
As her life hovered
"Ten percent," the doctors said.
Shattered body, all alone
.../.../....../..................
Alone.......

They were together again.


"Do you remember what they asked?"

"I do."

"And do you think...?"

The mortuary
Obliging,
Compassionate,
Arranged them
Arms encircling,
Her head upon his chest...
Embraced in life,
Embraced in death.

Lowered gently down,
A warming day,
In spite of snow,
A circling of friends around,
A mercy to have lived and died
Through every harm
Encircled in each others' arms.

At 82, he rises early, hurries to the barn
As fast as he can go, and at his age,
The shambling gait looks like a run.

"Retire?" I asked just once.
"Die in my boots," said he,
"Or hanging in a fence."

"Vacation?" his foolish son inquired.
"Each morning standing at the gate,
To see the sunrise is my vacation!" his reply.

"Rest?" I still must ask.
"I'll sleep when I am dead!"
How many times I've heard this?
I don't know.

I come, a tourist, to the farm I once called home,
The place he never left...will never leave.
Some day we'll find him, hanging in a fence,
Or stuck and cold in a snowy ditch,
Out on the fields or pastures that he loves.

No matter that my mother waits as always,
Looking out at distances,
At some late hour,
Wondering where her man is, and
Holding dinner warming on the stove.

Two lives inseparable in life, but winding down.

Beneath the wind-blown clouds,
Shadows promise rain
But not today.

Sealed water bearers bluster by,
Too driven and too high to quench
Panting prairies where they lie.

Thin skirts of rain begin descent...
Devoured in the desiccated air.

The parched land waits,
Inhabitants determined to survive,
Perhaps to thrive,
When slower, heavier clouds arrive.

Persistent genes of prairie dwellers
Early ripen to store quick growth
Within their husky seeds,
Bear children to mature
At lightning speeds,
Live rugged lives
Blessed sporadically with green
That quickly fades to brown,
Wait patiently to send
Their children on ahead.

So life remains and waits
Beneath the scuttling clouds
Enduring sun and shade,
In hope of rains.

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.

Bill loaded the truck with hard red winter wheat
One night so as to beat the scales at morning light.

Before sun up, he kissed Margie on the cheek
And roared out of the yard,
Overload springs sagging,
Engine fierce, but groaning,
Toward the town.

Two miles out,
The scale light said "Open,"
Giving Bill a momentary chill.

Shifting down, he exited
Before arriving Scale Hill.
A gravel detour waited
To take him on the long way 'round
And bring him back the other side of town.

Most situations similar
Go from bad to worse.
The truck eased down into a swale.

Beneath the surface gravel,
A bed of soggy clay
****** down the wheels
And stopped the farmer's way.

The creaking truck began to settle,
Testing Bill and
Leaving him chagrined
As the Transportation Deputy
Drove up to see the mess.

"Looks like you need a pull!"

What could Bill say?

And so he took the offer,
Then followed flashing lights
Back to the scale, and paid
A hefty fee to compensate
For being cheap too early
And learning much too late.

I have seen my share of old men
Sitting early in diners:
Widowers, perhaps,
Or never-weds,
Seldom women,
Excepting tired street people,
Tattered bags sprawling
Disheveled out of the wet,
Leaving only when the manager
Steps up with a bottle of soapy water
And a cleaning rag,
The polite symbol of
"It's time to go."

Fast food,
No place to rest,
Up and moving before the family crowd
Can see the riff-raff
Who sat these chairs earlier,
Who hunker now on some lee-side wall
Against the chill spring rain.

Winter, now, from the upper pole
Turns back his face to close our warm escape,
While whistling low to minions cold
To curtain lands beneath his icy cape.

Green Summer's fled now, with her mentor,
Autumn, in a crisping coat of brown...
Fled southward to the vernal center;
While pale sister Spring cannot be found.

Unsettling old white-bearded man
Blowing icicles and snow,
Driving Seasons feminine
Before his storming blows.

Yet  for all his windy work, how well we know
Now gloaming sisters shall return,
For Spring shall ever end the snow;
Warm Summer's glow and Autumn's burn
Return, return, return, return.

Kathy Charmaz suggests that if
Grounded Theory leaves me stuck,
I ought to add an "ing" to all the memos
Of all the field notes of the scratch notes of the observations,
and the transcribed notes of the interviews
That I took a half a year ago,
And so....

I'm creating a list,
Starting with A
Accepting (criticism)
Adapting (to change)
Attending (to lessons)
Attributing (blame)
Attributing (success)

Skipping B
Which seems all alone,
I move to the Cs,
With a heart of cold stone....

Caring (from teacher)
Changing (to learn)
Collaborating (in learning)
Comparing (with others)
Connecting (key concepts, and ideas to life)
Correcting (one's errors in deeds or in thoughts)
Conferencing (to see what the good doctor thinks)
(Guess the Cs are nice to look at in my despair),

And on toward Ds,
Those diffident dogs,
Dialoguing (in classrooms, in memos and calls)
Differentiating (myself from the pack)
Disrespecting (my feet up on somebody's desk)
Dominating....(discussion in class or the hall)
(Careful, Ds, talk it out or you're gonna fall).

Es are Encouraging (the work can be done),
Enjoying (the tasks, alone or with you)
Engaging the students, (not too much to ask)
Excelling (the sense of, and actually, too)
(My sense is that E is a place to be dwelling)

F is still Focusing (on the specifics)
Then jumping to G,
Goal-setting (so needed, and powerful, too)
Graduating (the goal, so I've heard, how 'bout you?)

Then H is for Humor,
Amusing for sure,

And on to the I
Interacting (dialogue is our guide)
Identifying (the needs and the shame and the pride)

J stands with K,
Both empty and alone,

L is for Learning (adjusting in change)

M is for Modeling (Bandura's so proud)

N stands for "none" at the moment,
But O is for Organizing, (homework and my thoughts)
And P is Participating, (profs like this a lot)
Paying forward, (so noble, and so seldom done)
Persisting, (not quitting, as losers have done)
And Plagiarizing (May God help us all)
Praying, (we live through the work set before us)
Prioritizing, and
Finally, Progressing (Can we sing all in chorus?)

Q's pretty quiet just now,
But R is for Reading, and
Reflecting, (like mirrors or a pond)
Resigning, (accepting) or consider this,
Risking (daring to risk)

While S, Lovely S is all about Self,
Self-advocating (students)
Self-assessing, (too)
Self-deprecating, (but not much)
Self disciplining, (cool)
Self-motivating, (how often?)
Self-regulating, (we all should do this)
And last, some Struggling proceeds
Before we find ourselves Succeeding.

T is Threatening, (a sense of foreboding)
Teaching, (is harder under a threat)
Transitioning, (moving on, before we all rust)
Trying, (not tempting, but taking a try)
Tutoring, (If you need it, don't cry)

And U
Is alone with the flu.

So is V (guess it's viral),
But W's Writing, (the goal in this study, of course)

And so far,
X, Y, and Z
Are still hiding, no Ings in their view,
And it's back to my coding,
After I get back from the loo.

A skater lone soars on new ice.
I hold my breath as I observe
His every pirouette and swerve.

Yesterday, the water lapped a chilling shore;
Today a brilliant skin holds sway.
Thickening hourly though it may,

I wonder at the nature of the glider there;
Does he consider life and death,
Or think beyond exultant breath

To be the first upon new winter's ice?
He sails along an ice-blade track,
Never falt'ring, never looking back.

Oh, I was young upon a time and flew
The way this skater now does fly,
But fear and "wisdom" hinder twice
While others soar above thin ice.

If I grow old and find myself alone,
I will take my breakfasts slowly
At Denny's.

I'll sit quiet at the counter
On a swivel chair and
Wait for a waitress' hand
On my shoulder
As she fills my coffee up.

I'll make small talk and hope to hear,
"How was your breakfast, my dear?"

And I will remember my wife
And miss my family,
And wonder what's left for an old man...
Knowing better times have come and gone,
But thankful, for a little while,
The comfort in a waitress' smile.

(Props to Tawnia and her crew, Breakfast at Denny's, Billings, MT, August 12, 2012)

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.

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.

Eternity,
Looking at a thread of Time,
Examined Earth,
Considered its conception,
Traced its trajectory,
Ignored the dire prognosis,
Opened its Heart to send
New Life through a ******.

In autumn
I try to imagine
That cooling nights
Are only Spring
Returning.

I imagine
Planting the garden
Again,
But old Frost
Reminds me
That second childhood
Is only the precursor
Of winter's death.