BRUSHSTROKES

her voice
caresses him in Japanese
the syllables of his name

enacted out
by the brushstrokes
of her voice

as if she drew him
in mid-air
and he hung there

alive
in the calligraphy of her
love

FLYING INTO FOREVER

the geese flew on and out
of my childhood

leaving me returning
each new year

to find that same moment
when I was 9

seeing the geese now
with different eyes

but somehow still
that little boy

seeing them
for the first time

the geese flying on and out
into forever. . .

. . .snow has fallen
in love with the world

dressing everything in
the same crisp white quiet

icicles hang from
the blue tricycle

a lost green glove creeps across the front yard

soon my daughter
all 9 years of her

will awake to find
the dream made real

a forgotten doll
gazes up at me

from the bottom of
the frozen pond

I write you a Christmas card
as I do each year

sign it love
as I always do

forgetting that

you are dead.

"WE TAKE NO NOTE OF TIME BUT FROM ITS LOSS"

I ****** you from
your dying

place you here
outside time

words and memory
conspire

make you forever
the boy you were

tell you to go play
on a day

you could
never forget.

Go on father
be this child

who never can
believe he can die.

*

“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.”

"By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours:

Where is tomorrow? In another world. . ."

Fragments of Young's poem fled through my mind as my Da lay dying. In my mind I talked to him all the time and sang songs to him. I tried to place him beyond this hour...bring him back to a past where he was but a boy and happy.

Night Thoughts

Edward Young (1742-1745)

OUTRUNNING THE WORLD

You ran and
the world couldn't keep up with you.

Here, in your third year
you discovered falling.

As if the world had
tripped up.

You look at your grazed knee
amazed at your self.

Blood oozes
from your chubby little skin.

I cry.
You do not.

You are just amazed that
there is an inside to you

that can somehow
leak out.

You dip a finger in
taste the redness.

Your laughter
is a spring

that bubbles out.

You can not understand
my tears.

My feeling your pain
on your behalf.

Or in this case
your "not-pain."

"Daddy - not cry!"
you comfort me.

You dry my eyes
with golden curls.

"Tilly run again...see?"

And you do so
to prove a point.

And once again
you are immortal

outrun the world.

Leaving your father
further and further

behind you.

You run into your future.
Become your self.

A tiny thin scar
the only reminder

of a pain only I
can remember.

THE LATEST SCORE

I feel you
in my bones.

You walk when
I walk.

The shadow of you
in my voice.

You talk when
I talk.

"How you. .
.get in there?"

I laugh
with your laughter.

"Don't believe in graves!"
you answer

breathing with my breath
speaking the wordless words.

"Don't believe in death...
either!"

you add to your hypothesis
as if further proof were needed.

You jump around
in my blood

hijacking my pulse.

"Hiya bud!"
you say

thinking with my thoughts
in that same slow easy drawl.

"This is where
the dead go

. . .when they die."

I know the living
ghost of my brother

. . .would never lie.

"Hey...!" says
my never forgotten brother

"...go easy on the ghost stuff!"
he smiles.

"Don't believe in ghosts either!"

"The dead live
inside those they love..."

I complete the sentence
for him

thinking now
with his thoughts.

Now we both laugh
with the same laugh.

"So, what's the latest score?"

"Look likes...we're winning!"

EMOTIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Here, I dig up
what remains

the myths
of us

fossils found
of thought

thought long ago

traces of us
lost to time

lost time
glinting now

behind glass
with labels to tell us

who we
were

who we thought
we were.

There, the lost
contact lens

brings a tear
to the eye

made more rare by
time passing by

prized now not
for function

becoming precious
an ordinary treasure

in an alchemy
of memory

full fathomed five
we be

believing in the truth
that was always a lie.

Here, the snake
entering the eye

socket of
a skull

( the stillness of
silence )

one plastic
the other for real.

The myth of us
sacrificed

upon the altar
of now

so allowing us to be

( altering as it see fits )

to be
just you & me

our selves again
( owning who we are )

escaping into
a future.

WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

Removing his spectacles
the doctor pinched

the bridge
of his nose

rubbed his eyes roughly

closed them
open them again.

Rain trickled down
the window pane.

Outside
a red tricycle

stood its ground
as if

it were an art
installation.

It's red made more red
by the rain's fury.

Beside it a white teddy bear
soaked to the skin

a sodden thing.

It couldn't be more sorrier

"Well....doctor...well...?"
the mother pleaded.

He turned to her
his words lost

in the thunder.

*

Once upon a time ago when I was in my youth I met a delightful old man on a train who looked like he could have been the country doctor in countless b&w movies. He called me "young fella me lad!" We traded all of THE WASTE LAND between us...line for line...."i grow old I grow old...I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled!" After we had dispensed with THE WASTE LAND we started on every poem we knew. He was surprised that I knew what I knew. I started to recite ~William Carlos Williams RED WHEELBARROW for him and he started crying. It turned out that in his youth he had indeed been a young doctor. He was called to a bedside where a little girl was dying and he had to tell the mother. She wouldn't accept this from him and clinging to the hope that he was young and looked even younger that he didn't know what was what. He looked out the window before he had to tell her and saw what he saw. Williams was also a doctor and I had read somewhere that he too looked out a window and saw.....the rest is poetry. So much depends upon....