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....

I sit eyes closed at the top of the wood
Desiring action, but in a dream,
Hooked head and feet immobile:
Near sleep of age, incapable to eat.

Necessity finds the highest trees....
Branches shake in sun-beaten ire;
No advantage find I in the moving air
While earth's face beckons me to fall.

Clenching now, claws deep in bark,
Creation's masterpieces find decay
Of foot and feather, come from dust,
This Creature must return to clay.

Vision strong still seeks resolve
As Earth below me still revolves,
Inward focus, resolute, admits
Tearing heads is now a chore.

Death's wind, inevitable, a chilling fact:
Who kills to live through victims' lives,
Though early arguments remain intact,
At twilight's call, they still must die.

From the West the same Sun sees me;
Only I have changed, and have grown thin,
And though my heart's set upon its path,
I've lost the strength to fly again.

Brahma
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON
If the red slayer think he slays,
      Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
      I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
      Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
      And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
      When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
      I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
      And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
      Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

To all of us:

Those for peace and those who war,
The healthy and the ill,
The satisfied and those who beg for more,
The pauper and the millionaire,
The valley folk and hill,
The ****** and the *******,
The husband and the John,
The mother and the father,
The daughter and the son,
The rake and lonely celibate,
The lion and the lamb,
The quiet and the loud...
Some day will reach the quest...
Rest will come to all of us
Somewhere between the cradle
And the shroud.

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.

(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)

Afraid, I took possession of a Harley Davidson,
2020 Road King, mine for a day,
So I could ride with my daughter and son
Toward mountains to the west.

The weight of things is upon me,
The values of metal and wind
Of power in a twisted throttle
Of speeding dreams and roaring winds

Fear of falling fades away
A few miles out of town
Scenery of fields and fauna
Take my mind from fear....

Calling Spring North,
Chirping buds to burgeon,
Teetering in rain that turns to sleet,
Clutching black, wet branches,
Feathers puffed against the chill,
Cocked heads seeking sleepy worms,
Side glancing carefully the neighbor's cat.

These red-breasted birds
Chortling in the morning sun
Precurse Spring,
Sing cheer to me.

Though I, no longer young,
My Autumn just begun,
Winter coming on,
Life's seasons only last a while.

I have a Savior,
Who has gone before,
Endured cold Winter's death,
Calls me to Spring,
Beckons me to Summer....

Roll on the throttle
Spare no horses
Let the wheels spin
And miles roll by.
Today's sun shines
Only a few hours,
And then night falls.

Roll on the throttle;
Streak the fields by;
Chase the golden sun
Set high in sky so blue.
Forever only lasts
This single day
Before the light goes down.

Roll on the throttle
Listen to the road;
Listen to the wind;
Listen to the roar.
In light and air like this
We cannot ask for more.

A 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 exactly at 12:00
When the hands aligned.

You drove "flagger,"
moving trucks and tractors
From field to field,
Raised two boys and two girls
To be God-fearing citizens,
Buried one in shock and disbelief;
And then moved on.

I know your secret.

There on that swept-neat farmstead,
Under the green roofs,
Beside the red barn,
In your white walls,
The rational order,
The unnatural neatness
Belied you.

Lydia...
You of the Romantic Heart,
You of the secret desire and passion.
Beside your chair in that sparse house
Stood a stack of romance novels
In easy reach,
An escape from harsh reality.

What guilty ecstasies you managed to steal
Came five miles from the post office,
Ninety-five cents a copy,
Wrapped in brown paper,
Tucked in a galvanized milk pail.

Ahhh.
The stolen moments!
The bliss of passions and handsome strangers
Ready to take you from dry and wind-blown land.

A 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 exactly
When the hands aligned.
At the stroke of noon.

You drove "flagger,"
Moving trucks and tractors
From field to field,
Raised two boys and two girls...
Buried one in shock and disbelief;
And then moved on.

I know your secret.

On that swept-neat farmstead
Under the green roofs
Beside the red barn
In your white walls,
The rational order,
The unnatural neatness
Belied you.

Lydia,
Woman of the Romantic Heart,
You of the secret desire and passion...
Beside your chair in that sparse house
Stood a stack of novels,
Romance in easy reach,
An escape from harsh reality.

Ahhh.
The stolen moments!
The bliss of passion!
Handsome strangers ready
To rescue you from wind-blown land.

What guilty ecstasies you stole
Came five miles from the post office,
Ninety-five cents a copy,
Wrapped in brown paper,
Tucked in a galvanized milk pail.

Melody,
I brought you red roses,
Just opening in glory
Because you felt this morning…
That you weren’t
Beautiful...

Because
I saw you
Standing
Tentative,
Three times
Before the
Mirror.

I,
Your greatest
Admirer,
Know that
You are
Beautiful….

Of lesser beauty,
These roses belong
In the presence of
Your Beauty.

Love always…
Your Admirer,
Don

Who is he,
The man in the sweaty tee-shirt,
Standing in the center
While cars **** round
The roundabout?

He holds a digging tool,
Remains of weeds clinging.
He waves at a city parks truck
Rounding on its way
To the main building.

I know him.
We taught together once.
His doctorate in ministry:
Servant lives and how to lead them;
Mine in words and letters,
And how to read them.

I wonder as I drive away:
The tenuous lives we lead;
No predicting whether next year
I'll be learning with students
Or pulling weeds on a highway.

Vicissitudes of Life...

The Author,
Having said
What is to Say,
Submits the Text
And Steps Away...

What's to be Read
Or Heard
Or Seen
Is Said and Done.

Then Comes the Fun.

The Reader
Ambles In shuffling,
Struggles In fighting,
Bumbles In stumbling,
Forges In determining,
Skates In gliding,
Rides In on a horse named Fluency.


The Reader wears the Text:
Tries it on for size,
Shrugs before Self's Mirror,
Stretches,
Shrinks,
Dyes,
Preens,
Thinks s/he sees the Whole,
But cannot even see the back
For lack of some connection,
Then ambles off to share
The Text with others.

Later, at the Readers' Circle,
Each wearer of the Text,
Each Poem Creator/Holder
Whose individual Poems differ
After putting on the Text,
Compare.
And though they twirl and dance,
Though they stretch and pose,
Though they must adjust,
No one wears the Text
The Same.

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

I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.

Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read 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'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was 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
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &  
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").

So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.

I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind
Apocalypses here to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Though Jesus is the "Word"
He never penned one).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

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.

The Reader
Experiences Text:
Tastes the corners,
Chews the middles,
Examines the ideas,
Turns them over and over -
Lozenges to be mulled.

Unique to each Reader
The Text must pass
Each Reader's senses:
His eyes,
Her nose,
Their tongues...
And so begins Digestion,
A complicated process producing
pleasant dreams in one,
Nightmares in another.
Soothing sleep for me
Dyspepsia for you.

Ideas have their routes to pass;
The dross is left behind or lost
And what remains is fiber to our souls
(To steal Walt Whitman's term).

Let me live this life

so as

to lie lightly in my grave
unburdened with care
unstained by scandal
blessed to rest in downy peace
waiting to be carried
by blessed wings
to a holy Father

rather than

running from
debtors and collectors
desperately relieved to lie
beyond the claws
of broken love
or broken law
fallen in a grave
of uneasy escape
dreading my way
to smoking perdition
dragged down by
my sin's own talons

When ranchers decide to do a thing,
Sometimes they just go through it.
What follows is a little fling
A neighbor did...don't do it.

The clearing of the land requires a little fortitude
Some ingenuity, and luck, and not a little courage.
So A.D. Volbrecht's story, though a little crude,
Is only strange to those who eat milk toast and porridge.

Rather than tear an old house down to clear a farming space,
A.D. enlisted help from his oldest son to haul the thing away.
Together then, the two grown men took on a moving race
To see if they could jack the house and move it in one day.

The morning saw a Donahue, low slung and meant to haul,
Waiting as the house was raised, (unsteady on new legs)
Then slowly lowered down again. T'would make a feller bawl
To see the old home place prepare to pack its bags.

Son Zane began a steady pull to move the old house home,
And A.D. took his place in front, flashers and flags to warn.
Slow going was their pace, and traffic stopped up some;
The actual move was tougher than the plan they'd formed.

So seven miles became a half a day, and challenges arose
How ever would they move the thing through town?
The power lines and traffic cops were obstacles; who knows
What kinds of tickets they'd be writing down?

Up ahead the airport gleamed, the tarmac shimmered black.
"Aha!" old A.D. cried, "I've found the way around!"
Hard left he turned on a county road, and cut the fence in back
And guided Zane and the old home shack to airport ground.

Western Airways flight was due sometime that afternoon;
Old AD rattled on up Runway One, old pickup running fast,
To find a gate to let the old house through, (and none too soon);
The tractor and its load sputtered through the parking lot at last.

In June a few years back, a farmer and his son pulled off a heist.
Stole some runway time and cut their journey short...
No harm done, though they'd never do it twice
Without winding up defenseless in the county court.

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.

At first,
Love is a Choice
To act,
Not in emotions,
Nor perceived rewards,
Done from duty as duty,
Because we would be
Loving.

Love may mellow
Over time,
See traits worthy of surrender...
Take root,
Become reason of itself
For pleasure,
For staying true.

We performed the ritual courtesies:
Reiterated "Love yous,"
"Thank yous,"
Farewell prayers,
Hugs,
Waving good-bye,
We hoped our window tint
Hid relief shining in our eyes....

And then another farewell,
A mother crippled, old,
Bent low by time and widowed,
Gentle now, and grateful
For our shortest stays.
This mellowed love we would desire
When we have nearly lived our days.
Smiling tears and long embrace,
Juxtaposed these loves that end in sighs
The differences in love's good-byes.

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.

Two screaming cats
Claw their way  
Up the high road,
Wild eyes flashing
WHITE AND RED
WHITE and RED
white and Red
white and red
whitenred
whitenred
red
red
red....

Glad I am home,
I sigh a prayer
In wondering
What roadkill
Waits to feed
Incessant screamers
Southward streaming terror.

A farm screen door latch
Should slam with the urgent drumming
Of a man or woman going off
On urgent business:
To see the cattle fed,
To till the fields,
To clang the dinner bell...
Should sing relentless songs of returns,
Not stand and wait for days...
Sagging as the hinges sag,
Lonely in waiting those who've left,
Forgetting to come back.

A door is meant
For entering and departing,
Handles on both sides.

Door latches that see
no leavings nor returnings
Are kindred to handles on coffin lids,
Opening containers only....
No longer home....

A farm screen door latch
Should slam with the urgent drumming
Of a man or woman going off
On urgent business:
To see the cattle fed,
To till the fields,
To clang the dinner bell...
Should sing relentless songs,
Not stand and wait for days...
Sagging as the hinges sag,
Lonely in waiting ones who've left,
Forgetting to come back.

A door is meant
For entering and departing,
Handles on both sides.

A house that sees
no leavings nor returnings
Is kindred to coffins,
No longer home....

What the Fisherman said:
"It seemed like a good idea."

What he did:
Went fishing in a rowboat
Out on the Sound
About a mile out
And seagulls all around.

What happened:
Seagulls came about
To see
If scavenge work
Was to be done.
Dipping in and out
And just above,
One had some fun.

Fisherman annoyed...
One plucky bird
Came close above his head
And closer,
'Til finally the fisher said,
"I think I could just
Reach right up
And grab his legs!"
And so he did....

Seagull's Reply:
Seagulls, shocked,
Regurgitate,
Explode,
Expectorate
Whatever they've been
Carrying inside.

Instead of Fight or Flight,
Seagulls puke;
They have no pride.
At least this one did
Not.

Fisherman's Response:
He didn't even know
When he let go...
First the gull,
And then his lunch.

The man and the bird shared
Something in common
Out on the Sound:
They met for lunch
And went away hungry.

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.

Secrets To My Brother's Farm

"Before you run off to the chores,
I have a secret you must learn,"
And so the messages are passed
On how to operate this tractor or that truck,
Which I, the visitor, must discern.

"This tractor's clutch will soon go out,
Unless you heed these words,
Keep rpm just high enough, but not too much...
Idle her down before you slip the clutch."

"The key won't work in the old pickup,
Just pull the **** there on the dash,
Then give the coat hanger wire a pull
until the engine fires...oh...did you check the tires?"

"Oh, while we're at it, see that old truck?
It doesn't like to start on the first try
So turn it over a couple times for luck
And then she'll start and never die."

"The air compressor switch is gone,
so plug it in to make it go, but first
Be sure to drain the tank, or it won't run,
The motor's tired and and has to have an easy start."

"The tires on the trailer need more air,
Especially the left one in the back,
Slow leak is all it is, but if it goes,
A newer tube's up on the rack."

"The loader's got a special wire
That you must clip to start the alternator charging,
(And if you ever do forget, the ire
You'll feel when the wires start burning.")

"This cow's alright, but don't forget,
To feed her last in her own bunk;
She likes to fight, and we'll need the vet,
If others crowd her to a funk."

"Don't lean on that, or you'll get hurt;
I've meant all spring to nail it."

"The handle broke, so you have to get out
By rolling down the window."

"Watch out! The guard is off that thing;
It'll take your arm just quick!"

"Be sure to shut the gas valve off,
Or it'll drain out on the ground."

"No brakes, so drive her carefully.
Keep it in a lower gear,
But if need be,
Hit something cheap."

"Two scoops only is the limit
You'll make her sick with more."

"Be sure to double-wire the gate;
The cattle will get out."

"We save the egg shells for the garden;
We never throw away what we could use."

So many secrets to remember,
I sure could use a list.
What do I get when I suggest?
A look equivalent to a hiss.

There's a picture of you holding cake,
White frosting on your nose, wanting more
Your mother and father grinning
As you explore sugar as never before.

Behind the cameras, we laugh and clap,
Celebrating a year and nine months' wonder,
A life that we have come to know and love,
A little girl, on a day you're only partially aware.

The dog lies nearby, watching for crumbs,
In his own way celebrating this happy day.
He does not seem to mind he is supplanted
As family favorite; at least, he does not say.

The balloons, the cake, one candle all aflame,
Join our choral "Happy Birthday" song
Follow in the first of what we hope
Will be many, many more to come.

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.

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 semester has begun,
Textbooks, scuffless, new,
Slung lightly in my students' packs
As they begin their freshman track.

Thirty-seven new beginnings on,
I am an old horse about to plow,
Semester settling on my shoulders,
Horse collar creaking to the strain
As earth yields and rolls to the side.
Fall plowing the back 40 has begun.

Hair flying like lace all undone in the wind,
Flaxen and golden and fine in the sun,
Scented with hay mown fresh before dew,
A laugh on her breath and the mention of you.

She came in from the chores
Bearing Dolly's warm milk in a pail,
A tabby young kitten threading her heels,
And baby was greeting his mother in squeals.

She came in with the cold, blown by the wind,
And shuttered the heavy old door.
She stirred up the coals in the rusty old stove,
Cheeks all afire with the ice and the snow,
Stamping her feet by the fire's warm glow.

She came in from the spring,
A pail in her hand, and butter, packed in a jar,
Humming a tune with mud on her shoes,
A meadowlark's call on her mind,
First signs of green and new life on the wind.

She came in from the walk,
Frown on her face, mail in her hand,
Letters from home, black ribbon adorned,
News that made tears find their place,
And saddened her heart as it raced.

She came in from the fields
Weary and worn, old from the sun and the wind,
And she settled herself by the rusty old stove,
And she rocked in her battered old chair,
Reflecting a life both bonny and rare.

She came in from the fields,
And she'll go back again
When the evening sun makes its way
Round the flickering stairs to new day;
She'll rise just a bit before dawn
To stoke up the dwindling fire,
And go feed the new lamb
Whose mother has left her alone,
Whose mother has left her alone.

Cold settled in deep
On him and their son,
A poor fool, lost in his own world,
Scarcely aware his mother was gone.

The boy's father couldn't cope...
Tried, but hope with her had died.
Bankrupt faith, spent in futile prayer
To cure the failing heart,
Restore the lungs...
A silent "NO" hung in the air,
And she was gone.

Her ashes flew home beside him.
He went to pick up his son,
Stopped for three fifths of Scotch...
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear.

The house suffered under stench:
Old *****,
Excrement,
*****,
Spilled bottles,
Cans scattered on the floor;
Everywhere a sour putrescence.

His son floated in and out of vision,
Autism and inebriation:
Two forms debilitation,
No hope of equilibration.

Neighbors made some calls...
Social workers came,
Took the son away.

Death seemed a reasonable option.
Leave the mess.
Join his wife.
End this ******* life....

Revolvers favor simplicity:
Load the chambers,
Snap the cylinder in place...
Aim closely to remove his face.

Muzzle up,
Open mouth,
Squeeze the hammer down...
Only a clicking sound.

Unusual, this...
Aim at the ground,
Squeeze off a round...
Ears ringing from the sound.

Raise the muzzle once again,
Bite ******* steel,
Squeeze the trigger down...
Again, a clicking sound.

Aim at the ground,
Blam! Potent round...
Set the revolver down.

"Hello. 911. What is your emergency?"

"Come get my gun;
I'm trying to **** myself."

Police arrive.
He's still alive.
Drunk and numb...
They take his gun.

Six weeks later, still in a haze,
He's told his story.
We are amazed,
But still he's found no calm for grief.

We struggle beside him,
Waiting for some sign,
Some reason why a gun
Should fail to fire...twice.

If you should read these words, my friends,
Please speak a prayer for a lonely man.
Ask for freedom from despair,
For peace and letting go,
For comfort and the hope of friends,
For better ends.
For better ends.
For better ends.

Rolling power:
      Churning waves
      Grinding shells,
      Prolific evidence of life & death
      Rising from salt depths,
Epic revelations from below.

Evidence of end games:
     Shells, drilled, scarred, scored
     By beaks of tendrilled monsters;
     Occupants devoured,
****** through ravaged carapaces.

Fecund progeny:
    Tiny messages, these shells...
    Evidencing life,
    Echoing death,
Generations grinding down and down.

My tanned bare feet,
    Track tide-lined shells,
     Seek forensic evidence and beauty,
     Follow ribbons of shells
Cast empty from the pounding sea.

A grey goose above me
Calls strident-high,
Alone and looking down,
While I walk toward the lake,
Looking up to find
His silhouette against gray sky.

We're miles from town
On a middling winter day,
Shortest hours of light
Within the year.

We two are lonely here.

Skies gray promise
Neither rain nor snow;
A warming wind is blowing;
Perhaps the silver skiff
Will melt again,
And let the grey flier in.

Where are his loved ones?
I'd like to know;
And why he flies alone,
Scanning from his skimming height,
And yet I think I know.

I used to hunt his kind,
To lie in wait beneath a blind,
And rise to meet
Descending flocks,
Wings set,
Until I knew
The goose I'd brought
To ground
And the goose above
Remained inseparable,
One mate for life,
Death do them part,
And after, live alone.

A chill is setting in tonight,
And I am heading home;
A fire and my wife waiting.

Some comfort as the evening ends
I hope the grey one finds,
In the company of friends...
I'd see he weren't alone,
If I could make amends.

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.

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.

Halfway between Malta and Saco,
Highway 2 stops a minute
To look back...

Beside the road
A little shrine waits
The traveler:
A stone, naturally shaped
To form a sleeping buffalo,
But etched with lines to emphasize
The dozing buff's back and sides
And drowsing head.

Nearby, a 1920s entrepreneur
Saw money to be made...
Set up a happenstance hotel
Beside the hot and sulf'rus spring,
And "Sleeping Buffalo" was born
To "heal" and to amuse
Odd tourists in their wandering.

Not much has changed...
The old buff sleeps,
But now inside a little pen
To keep the tourist vandals
Safely from his way.

The old resort is open still...
Same rusty pipes and yellowed walls
And rusty water
Warm enough to stain
Unlucky bathing suits.
(The smell's enough to force
The bather to the bath as medicine....)

On my way to other places
I have stopped along the road
To meditate beside the old stone bull...

I understand, a little,
Now that I am growing old,
Tobacco offerings left
Beside the sleeping stone.
Though not a Pagan,
I can feel the distant Ways
Before our Western ways
Made tourists of us all.

"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.

1960s small town talk:

"Saw the Henrick kids today,
Walking home from school.
Rag tag bunch, the lot of 'em."

"*****, all of 'em. Crying shame."

"Del came home and asked why
the oldest girl has scabs all up her arm."

"I guess her old man is up to his
drunken tricks again. Looked like
cigarette burns, you ask me."

"What will ever come of that?"

"I don't know, Mother.
Please pass those spuds around again.
Your gravy is excellent tonight."

I kept my head down,
thinking about what I'd heard.

When Esther Smith and Stella Prue played a prank,
The community speculated who-dunnit,
Quirky, yes, and funny, too, the spinster pair created
Minor havoc in the town and were permitted,
By one and all to set the pace for jokes committed.
When Jebediah Olefson's oldest ward,
Tommy, and his girlfriend, MaryLou,
Moved in together, no one spoke a word,
At least out in the open, but the village knew
A prank to fit events would soon be witted.
One Sunday on their way to church,
Towns people passing by the couple's place
Beheld a sight to make the elders smirk.
A hundred diapers, white and in disgrace, were hung
Upon the couple's drying lines, a piece of work.
No surprise, the two were wed within the month.

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.

Minnesota,
land of snow
land of ice
and wind
and chill

Gray sky, thick clouds, and fog now reign -
Give visibility that comes and goes
Between the sleety sister, icy-rain
and her brutal brothers, wind and snow,
But sunshine days are only weeks away.

Beneath the snow now sofa-thick -
A muffled trickling in the creek...
Not that winter's in the bag,
But an icicle extends its length;
White powder snow begins to sag;
A trickle leaves the water tank.

The ice, knee-thick, when drilled,
Reveals fish to pull up through the hole.
A month of fishing remains still;
The ice is safe, in spite of dwindling cold.

Somewhere up a path I hear but cannot see
The cheeky call of a chick-a-dee
Alerting family with his tweet
Who feast on orange bittersweet.

There's still a pile of seasoned wood
stacked in the shed, and enough food
To feed a visitor who happens by,
And every day is closer to blue sky.

So keep your hurricanes and quakes,
Your desert dryness and your heat,
Your eruptions volcanic and tidal waves,
Your populations fighting just to eat...
To me the cold and snow are sweet.

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.

After all the work of forming sprouts,
Calling out all forms of  leaves,
Beckoning grasses, inert, unseen,
HE turned browns to golds and greens.

After awakening from restful sleep
The slumbering, snoring bears,
The fidgeting squirrels,
The ball-coiled snakes;

After HE irresistibly wooed to life,
Fish, Fur, and Fowl,
Gave orders of procreation,
Set ardor in the *******
Of all living things,
To make them spawn and breed,
To make them stomp and howl,
Under the teeming blue of oceans,
Upon the verdant plains of grass,
Beneath the sun that holds us fast,
Fecundity blooming where HE passed,

After the world was teeming and alive,
HE left humans asking questions,
And a Serpent asking on the sly,
"Perhaps it's just another lesson?"

Suggested truth beyond the Truth might lie.
And she, Pandora's Mother, Mother of all men
Considered loss of innocence the price of "Why?"
And death a mystery to share with Man.

So Winter came upon the world,
So Death declared its right to win,
And Living Things upon the earth,
Discovered cold and death and sin.

Growls or barks me from my easy sleep,
Dragging from my lips a groan, or sometimes worse,
Because a wind-blown branch is tapping at the house,
Or the neighbor dog is yelling out his worries to the moon.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, the dog
Moves from his place at our feet
To the valley between you and me,
Settles atop the comforter,
Lays his shaggy head upon my chest,
And sighs a deep, contented sigh
To say he is part of the pack, happily at rest.

Sometimes in the middle of the night I remember
That humans aren't the only family members.

Come sit with me
On this stone of sorrow;
Weep, lest I weep alone.
We may have laughing again...
Tomorrow;
But today, I'll rest
On this sorrowing stone,
Together with you
Or alone.