As we got older
the windows

stayed open for only
a brief moment

then they shut
for a very long while

seconds mattered
and so did accuracy

Whit Howland © 2020

My life, then, hung like a
sun-yellow mobile that spun
in the heat as I flowed from
one end of summer to the other.
The songs on the radio were
my island.  My life as a girl
in the years before fences
appears in memory slides,
dressed in the beaches of  
youth.

I grew from seeds to roses in
the ground of my childhood
summers.  In the calendar of
my life as a young girl
every date prefigured you.
Day by day, in the years of
growing I bought, with the
barter of my soul, all the
heat and all the music.

Battened by the times before
you, strengthened by long
storms, hot suns, cold winds,
this, then is what I offer
you:  deep beaches, thornworn
roses, summers that flow
from one end of your life
to the other.

Caroline Shank

I'm oh so far away from
where you are.

I have climbed your mountain
and found only scree and granite
at the top.

Others have been here and left
a stone.  I have nothing to leave
you but an empty dish. A cold
meal once eaten is like a frozen
embrace.  Empty is empty.

I am walking away from your
promise like a cat leaves a
deserted dish.

No! Do not touch me.  
Touch only the breeze as
I leave.  Do not speak to me

I lie
in the air,
crying with the
gulls.


I mourne
Kaddish.



Caroline Shank

I wish that others could see you
as I do, Darling.
I wish they were here with us now
and could hear Flaubert’s love letters
dripping off your lips.
I wish they could hear the tenderness,
the ache in your voice,
reading those scandals,
for a love that deep and unashamed.
I wish they could see the joy that
flashes across your face
at the simple pleasure
of a charcoal line
drawn perfectly across a page.
I wish all the world could see you;
see your mind and heart
and soul as I do,
because you would receive
ceaseless love letters
from an enamored world
that would make even Flaubert blush.