The sun will come up tomorrow,
the flowers will grow in the spring,
May love abound in your life and
peace to your soul may it bring.

I thought I would be different today
I expected midnight this morning would have wrought a change
In me like Cinderella's coach that turned into a wrinkled pumpkin
Leaving her to walk home from the ball.

But that didn't happen.

Midnight struck this morning and the gentle heart and
Glowing soul who lies beside me through every lonely night
Reached back, pulled my face close to hers and said,
"Happy birthday, I love you".
Then she kissed me and I was young all over again.

It was spring when the old things get cleared away
and I opened a drawer that was mostly closed now;
in the back was a ring of keys I hadn't touched forever
because the doors they opened were gone.

My first car, a castoff from my father we used in high school
to go to practice, or for hamburgers, or to the movies
in a time when that was the most fun we could have.
I see the boys now, smiling and singing songs you never hear anymore.

The key to my the apartment I had going to school, a little place
I shared with Jimmy Redd just off campus where we
drank, caroused and learned how to cook hamburger helper
between working and going to class.

The key to my first office and the house I bought where
some of my kids lived and I had a future
that was wasted by trusting people whose most important
love was in the mirror every morning

Then there were no keys for years when I could not unlock
the doors I lived behind in places where
the only comfort was a date yet to come as I waited
and the world turned without me, changing everything

Which turned out to be for the best
For the last unused key was to my first home after leaving high school
the place love became real and where the missing part
of me had been waiting through her own trials.

I smiled and held the keys tight then put them back into the drawer
they are not useless as I thought
because the doors they open are those I will
always be able to enter.

Dusk, on a quiet evening
Toward the end of my summer.
Shadows kneel at the foot of the setting sun
In a place where I can see them gather just before
They join to form the night that comes on to steal the world.

The road behind me leads from purgatory, ahead it leads to home,
But home is different now.
The car I drive is empty of those who once rode with me.

I wonder how much different
Where I go will be from where I have been
At least I will not have the locks
They put on my doors and
Hope is not a word and whispered
By souls who have abandoned it.

He was born the year Babe hit 61,
Baptized by the Great Depression,
And confirmed in the South Pacific;
They jokingly called him the Million Dollar Baby.
No one knows why
Because he was one of millions who did what
Was right in a time when if they hadn't
Our world could have gone wrong.

And they expected not even a pat on the back for doing it.
They were beautiful.
He was beautiful, my dad.

He carried me even when I was old enough to walk
No complaints, no expectations beyond that I would
Do the same for mine.

I tried, but didn't do as well as he had done for me.

Now the Million Dollar Baby sits in a geri chair,
Cared for lovingly by his youngest girl.
Fading like his memory of who he was and what he did

But I will never forget.

Heaven will be lucky to get him,
I was luckier to have been his son.

The fog came in and cut the hard edges off Monday morning,
Which really didn't do much good because a cold rain
Fell through it and soaked down to my soul.

It is the kind of day when reality bends and
The big questions beg for answers,
Like where does the spark go when it leaves?

I mean we turn out the lights, but the beam travels
Endlessly, the fastest thing we know, to the end
Of what?

The universe?  Time? (Whatever time means compared to eternity)

So, the light in our eyes, where does it go when the power is cut?
Or am I supposed to accept, Dr. Hawking, the light we make
Rubbing two sticks together is superior to the light in us because we
Can't yet find the formula for sentience or measure
It's limits beyond what we can see?

Big questions, foggy, rainy Monday and I am alone
A week after the light went out in dad.

I expect he’s out past Jupiter by now, heading home.

He’s also right beside me, I can feel him, thank God.

I washed ashore blind with anger after the storm of my life,
And met a girl who loved rainbows.  
She found me, though she wasn’t really looking, and
Called out to me cautiously; for
She’d lived through a storm of her own.
We learned to know each other through the distance
Between us, enjoying what we learned and suffering,
At times, from the jagged edges of what we’d been through.

Trust that has never been betrayed came first, then
Friendship, and love.  Then came something more
As these three aspects melded into a union greater than the
Sum of them.  Something comfortable, something
Warm; a companionship of spirits gained over two decades.
That will carry us above and beyond and away
Where pain is forgotten, and the warmth lasts forever.

I have not earned this, it was my luck when I was blind
That she could see the rainbows after my storm…

Not like the stories, is it?
Or the movies, or the expectations
we get from all that.

It's about people who travel with baggage
they carry when
they move into your life.  

It's heavy sometimes, and ugly and you have
to help them carry it, which isn't much fun.
Not like what it was supposed to be;
nothing you want to do;
not fair at all…

So what it is, love that is, takes all the stuff
from the stories and expectations
and adds understanding, acceptance, accommodation
because that's what it takes to help you
carry someone's baggage…

and what it takes to help them carry yours.

He was a good kid once,
All smiles and personality that set him apart.
"A pleasure", his teachers said;
"A funny boy, but so smart"!
He was first among his friends and loved by family in those days.

But those days pass and life wears you down.

Romances failed him, or vice versa,
The big leagues never called,
And work was never interesting, just work.

Always his escape from what should have been was in the ****
    Which got inside his head and changed him.

Frustration twisted him as years passed and dreams dimmed;
Every change was a loss he took as something stolen.
He didn't see he gave away what he lost,
        So he wanted revenge on us because we couldn't help him.

His actions hurt us,  but not how he thought it would,
        We suffered to see him become the God who banished himself To the hell of his anger where the Satan he became
        Keeps him locked away in lonely frustration.

He was a good kid once,
All smiles and personality that set him apart.
"A pleasure", his teachers said;
"A funny boy, but so smart"!
He was first among his friends and loved by family in those days.

Now he's gone and can't find his way back.

And I miss him.

the key to our situation
is surreptitiously
concealed under the doormat
where anyone who wanted in
would look…
and so, my love,
I will pretend to be
surprised I found your
key if you will pretend to be
surprised when I come home..

They all lie together now,
Those who hate and the ones they hated.
The short and tall, rich and poor
Ones who worked and those who lazed away their lives...

They all sleep together, equals here, even though some have massive
stones to mark their passing, others just flat bricks
with a weather worn name

And when they wake in some other place
this will have been a bad dream they shared.

Some nights I stand at the deck rail
To watch the day burn out across the lake.
Behind me darkness devours the remnants of the
Waking world; transforming what we know
Into things we fear.

The waves, here all my lifetime,
Are gone leaving only the
Growl and hiss of an angry, unseen beast.

The flaccid light of the moon is no help
As it sends shadows like twisted beings from
A nightmare racing from structures
I thought could be trusted.

Even the wind blows colder, sending a shiver
Down my back as I stand tense in the belly of the night

I think, therefore I am not digested by night…
Unless the morning fails, as one day it must.
I hope this is not be what the endless will be,
I want what the nuns promised.

No one builds a life, we survive
for a time in that sea by
swimming through currents where
random pieces of flotsam and jetsam
keep us afloat for a time then sink,
or move on,
leaving us to swim again, looking for land
that does not exist in the form we seek.

For moments settle on islands until they
no longer sustain us or
the sea rises up and washes us out into the currents
swimming to survive,
but in the end we cannot.

The best we have of the sea are memories
of what we hoped for and the dreams
we dream when we sink below the waves to sleep.

The weight of my life pressed behind me
Pushing like a dark wave for me
To outrun before it could swallow me.
I drove to work with thoughts
Of the must things and the must nots I had to obey
Or suffer a fall from which I could not rise.

My eyes were locked on scenes in my mind
When I turned a corner where a small bank of fog
Had taken temporary residence in a field.
The sun was rising behind the tree line, so it
Was safe for the fog to sit here for a moment and change the world
Into something soft as it piled and flowed in a gentle breeze.

It drew me in

I almost felt it on my face in the cool morning
I wanted to stop and run into the bank where the pressure
Couldn't find me and the must-must nots were not
The fog was all potential and would whisk me off
To where I should be…

Prisoners call fog the parole man because it can hide an escape
I see why now for I needed to be released from
What I had wished for and received.

But the car moved and the sun rose and the wave pushed me on

Someday.

Someday.

If only the life's sidewalks
  Were like people movers
That quicken our pace,
   Soften our steps, and carry
Our baggage for a while.

How great that would be…except

The machine would choose our
   Path unless we got bored and
Decided to carry his own baggage
   And set out on his own.

So I guess a short trip through the
   Airport is okay, but I think I’ll make the
Real journey under my own power.

She should have been fine,
Right school, good family, right color,
But she was at the age when things go wrong.

She began to feel the weight
Of weightless things
And the need to be someone
No one could be outside the cover of a magazine.

So the doubt crept in and
Muddied her image in the mirror
Then frustration took hold
Because she couldn't reach a
Place that never was
Or ease the pain of that failure.

One bad day, the devil whispered
Through the mouth of a boy who knew her pain
In his hand a pill, he said,
“It's cool, everybody does”.

But she heard through tortured adolescent thoughts  
“Here is peace, acceptance is here, belonging “.

And so she did and did
And when she tried to turn away
The whisper became a shout, then a command
And the pill became a needle in her arm.
  
When money ran out, she started selling
Pieces of her soul in backseats, or ***** hotels.
The devil left her then, he had won.
No more promises, no dreams, or hopes or even fears
Only the need for something
No one ever needed.

Her world became an illustration
She maintained with just enough sense
To keep her on the street, but
It wasn't enough in the end.

Her mother found her in her bed
Afterward the woman always said
“She looked so peaceful and
So young. “My little girl “.

Somewhere the devil whispered,
“Peace” and laughed.

Toward the end of every year, Christmas comes again,
To life the tired spirits for those of us who can
Celebrate with lights and trees and carols that we sing,
And all the warm and happy smiles expensive presents bring.
But December twenty-fifth to some is just another day
To bear alone like all the rest that drain their lives away.
Come take a look at holidays for folks you might have missed
As you hurried by them to buy your family's gifts.

Sara Jenkins limped along the sidewalk on South Main,
Her ancient, failing body was bent with cold and pain.
Her ***** fingers held the bags storing all she owned;
She walked alone and spoke to ghosts of people she had known.
The shoppers on the sidewalk stepped out of her way,
The sight and smell of Sara drove them all away.
No one knew old Sara, no one wanted to;
No one had the time for her with Christmas things to do.
She hobbled down an alleyway behind The Deli Suite,
To find the empty packing crate she crawled inside to sleep.
She turned a corner, dropped her bags and gave an awful howl,
A delivery truck had crushed her crate against the Deli’s wall.
Sara scrambled to the crate, and pulled the boards away
She searched around until she found a photo in a frame.
The glass was cracked, the photo torn, but she could see his face.
And his arm around her shoulders in their younger days.
Then the wind whipped up around her, she pulled her sweater tight.
Sara knew she needed warmth to make it though the night.
She saw a rusty dumpster where she used to look for food,
The only thing the dumpster held were rags and broken wood.
She packed the rags around her, underneath her clothes
And looked about to find a spot to sleep out of the snow.
But the alley didn’t hold a place to lay her tired head,
So Sara walked up to the truck and tried the door instead.
She braced herself and pulled, the truck’s door opened up,
And Sara’s life grew by one night thanks to random luck.
The driver of the truck had quit at noon that day,
And left his lunch behind him in his haste to get away.
A thermos and a lunch box were lying on the floor;
Now Sara had a meal and a place out of the storm.
She gathered up her battered bags and slid onto the seat,
Locked the doors, settled back, and ate the driver’s meal.
Tomorrow he may come back, and then she’d have to leave,
But time for that tomorrow, tonight was Christmas Eve.

He left for good today,
It was earlier than expected and without notice,
Just a voice on the phone
Saying, “He’s gone”.

I went to the place where he lived
Hoping it was a mistake, but he was gone,
Hard to believe,
Difficult to accept,
But he is gone and my world is a lot scarier.

I’ve got his place now and I am not the man he was
Because he made it easier for me than it was for him.
He did this selflessly and with
Joy because I was his son.
  
Am his son.

An honor I didn’t have to earn,
Yet I want to be worthy of it.
So, I have to find my balance
And do what he did for me when it was his turn.

There are people behind me
Who need the things he gave me and
There are people behind them.
Though the shoes they must fill are smaller
Than the ones I step into.

Safe journey home, dad.
I’ll see you soon and we can talk about it all.
Rest well ‘til then

A woman came to see me today,
She sat across the desk and handed me
A deed she wanted me to look over.

I didn't recognize the name on the deed at first,
Then slowly it began to dawn on me who she was
I looked up and saw her expectant eyes and a curl at the edge of her lips

God knows what she saw in my face, but she said,
"Hello, Jimmy, it's been a long time".
And it had, probably 30 years ago at my mother's funeral.

Here was my mother's friend, 81 now, old enough to call a
65-year-old man Jimmy and touch the place inside him
Where his mother's memory lives.

But it was more than a visit between old friends.
A friend of mine now gone called such things divine appointments

Because, you see, my mother was in that room as we talked
About our families and the days back when our world was young,
Full of love, and death had never touched me.

When she left I cried…

It's hours later and mom's still here beside me as I write.
I feel her as I have all the terrible times when she protected me,
Mostly from myself, and the blessed times like when I found
My way to a new home and love.

I'll see mom one day where she is waiting
I have missed her so very much,
But today I discovered she never left.

Look around and trust your heart, you'll see what I mean

It is a sad world where the things
happening in the night are the most fascinating,
which means they are broadcast where we can see them better
and hopefully buy the toothpaste sponsoring them.

The startling things are real, but they are not who we are,
not we who embrace our humanity and shudder
at the tales of those who prey and injure
to feel a power we shun

My mother said there is no paycheck for being good;
Maybe, but there is consolation for
in those moments when what we do
is what we ought to have done

Moments when a stranger's child frightened by lighting
instinctively leaps into your arms for comfort,
times when a stricken cancer patient is solicitous about
the sound of your cough in the doctor's office.

You have felt the warmth I cannot describe
and you know, you know
this is the touch of something greater given to
comfort us for all we will endure.

I am one who always watched the sunset,
The end of the day is where I lived,
I never saw the sun on the rise
Or knew what the morning had to give.

I missed all those years so full of sunrise
Left there behind unenjoyed
I knew the dawn as just a noun,
A word I never understood.

But then I woke one morning to the sunrise
And saw all the colors of the dawn.
That was the day you came into my life
And made it a joy to carry on

The sacred, elemental fire of the sunrise
Burned hot between us from the start
The sun rises high every day for me now
Where the dawn is always in my heart

Just about everyone likes ice cream
You can please some people with chocolate, some vanilla,
except for people who  might like fro yo,
among them the ones who like chocolate or vanilla
unless they want sherbet.  

Or maybe you can leave them to their choices
And try to please yourself.

It is hard to say when she started disliking the
Girl in the mirror.
It was probably about the time they gave her braces.
Surely, she began to take only glances
When she got pimples her hair wouldn’t cover
Try as she did with different lengths and styles.

The worst of it started when her friends began
To round out and she stayed all lines and angles,
Like a child among young women discovering themselves.

It drove her inside herself,
Further from her friends, one of whom
Struck a devastating blow when the Girl overheard
Herself called a pimply stick
Just so a boy of dubious morals would laugh.

She started hanging the towel on her mirror then.
She told her mother it dried better that way.
The woman accepted this
And so the Girl in the mirror locked herself away.

Mirrors cannot show the heart or wit
Or the steadfast love within.
There is only the reflection of beauty soon gone
And cast aside for that.

If only the Girl could see beyond the pale reflection.

Maybe Hell is our fear and Heaven our hope both of which were spawned by someone taking different meanings from the same night sky.

And maybe not.

I think too much, and thoughts
Can be demons carrying fear,
Doubt and pain as they chase me
Down paths where there is no hope
And optimism isn’t even an echo.

In the bottom of It all, where the dark swallows everything
I find myself whispering “I want to go home”
And I am comforted by recalling a house
In a time when I was encouraged to believe
The consequences of not reaching for a better place
Were worse than failure…
A fable for kids that has been beaten out of adults.

Home, the place where I could always go
And they always let me in with a smile.
It's gone now, alive only in a whispered invocation
When the bad thoughts invade my mind.

Maybe you can never go home again,
But maybe its recollection is a seed
To a new home where my role is different
Though necessary to others who may someday
Whisper in desperation so the memory will let them in.

There was fog this morning softening
What I knew into whatever I could make of it
My mind fell out of life and into  
The business of re-constructing reality;
Like when I was young and could dream
Of things to come without limitations because
Young minds are endless fonts of possibility
Before life replaces the pressure of belief
With the exigencies of work, and pain, and the weight of broken hope.

But the fog restores by turning the hard edges of the world
Into soft things that my mind can mold.

Gravity becomes the illusion in the fog for everything floats.
Light is no longer sharp and discerning, but gently hides imperfection.
Shadows who fear the day walk bravely in the fog and carry
Dreams I had, and quiet memories.
The sound of the world is muted and I cannot recall
My failures, only my hopes, my dreams, the warm memories.

All this rides the fog…

Its mist gets in my eyes.  The breath of it is cool.  I feel it around me

I wish I could stay here forever.

The world was a tapestry hung on simple pillars once.
They taught us how to see our place in it, what to do, how to act
Who we were supposed to be.

But we never saw behind the curtain
Where things never considered were boiling
And caught us one by one to change what was promised.

Who was prepared not to be loved, or for failure
Or to survive the death of traditions and the
Acceptance of something once taboo to be the norm?

The tapestry has changed and all the nostalgia in
My heart can’t restore what it was.  
I can’t embrace it, but I have a tool to cope.

“Go with the flow, Jimmy,”
My mother said,
“Go with the flow”.

The game was created for us to play
As if we don’t care about the score;
Taking our satisfaction from the moments
We made hard plays look simple
And the simple ones look automatic.

When we fall, and we all fall, we
Take pride in getting up.
When we can’t get up,
Defiance redeems us from our failure.

In the end, we remember the plays
Not the wins and losses, because in the end
We all get carried off the field.

How many were there?
Who were they all?
Where are they now?

Why can't I remember everyone who
was important to me?

And why have so many forgotten me?

Then I think of Life beyond myself and how
Things change to meet the seasons
And the challenges of fate.

I recall discussions of how successful
Species adapt and evolve and go on
And I’m struck by the realization
That Life means my life too, though
I find no comfort in that.

And in moments like these
I find miss them all, even the ones I can’t remember.

I never understood the those left behind
Until I became one.
Trust and love are live in the dictionary then
And loneliness presses in like the cold, empty depth of a well.

But when I was abandoned, no one counted on me
Like the little ones whose mothers struggle
With their pain and have to keep moving…

They wear a mask through the day and have shoulders to carry
The load of two and they cannot falter
Lest the small ones fear and suffer the loss of
Of all that was left.

But at night the mask is off and the dark void
Fills places where pieces of life are missing.
Love is gone, the bed is empty, the money gone and
No one is there for warmth.

I never knew that part, but I know one who did
And she is strong in all the broken places,
Though how I'll never know.

And you who read this and suffer, know that she
Lives in your mirror if only you look.

I was driving the back roads from my house
out in the country where things are real;
they live, they die, they make noise and they move
in the way Nature intended.

The road bumped under my wheels because it wasn't paved,
dust flew up behind the car, but fresh air came in my window.
The sun was going down a bit, so the horizon in my rearview mirror
was a beautiful orange blaze which gave me peace.

And for some reason I wondered when it would come.

I've been waiting for as long as I knew it existed
though when I was younger the wait seemed so long
the coming seemed more fantasy than reality,
time changed that perception as did experience and loss.

Now I know it's closer.  Thank God I can't feel it near yet
but I know it's closing in and I wonder when it will arrive;
I also wonder whether it will be swift and merciful
or if it will play with me and make me suffer
and force me to be brave
I'm not brave, you know.  I'm just stubborn
and I like to fight battles I am not supposed to win.

Then I wondered if fighting would be worth it
because all I want, all I need, is to be a part of this out here
a piece of what is real, which is why my peace will be as
scattered dust riding on the wind to find my place
in all of this beautiful, sacred, loving nature.

I wonder when it's coming.
          Some days i don't want to wait.

My friend who I admire believes the future
is controlled by our discipline and preparedness
and the effort we put into securing what we want from life.

But she is young, probably beautiful,
and therefore handicapped by the privilege given
to the young who see many doors to what the future holds.

Time will cure that, or perhaps not, but probably so,
in any event, I hope her perception works for her,
I have seen too much to believe it.

I have walked the stairs of life
where the future is not behind
limitless doors, but rather windows which get smaller
the further up you go, and there are a fewer of them.

So, for my dear friend, I hope the future
remains limitless and becomes glorious
I felt that way long ago,
but capricious fate  and destiny make me believe
the end was written before the story was published.

Somebody posted your obit and
The name seemed familiar.
Then others followed with how they missed you.
Turns out we went to school together.
And I can't remember your face
Or when we spoke to each other
Or the last time I saw you.

We lived lives with no intersection
And not even a remembrance even though
We went side by side through times
That made us who we are.

I like to think we were friendly,
But how could that be?
I would have remembered you face when they told me
And I remember nothing except your name was familiar.

So why do I feel a loss?

My best friend says either God invented us
Or we invented God, nothing else makes sense to her:

I guess I don't know what makes sense to me either, but
when  I feel comfort sending prayers into the Universe
or I survive what should have crushed me, or
or I see my children's faces in the album of my mind, or
especially In the moments after loving my wife and
         we lie quiet in the night

I feel what we must call God and I know,
I just know,
That people aren't smart enough to have invented Love.

Something gentle woke me early;
You were beside me, warm, breathing easy,
With that young girl look that sleep leaves softly on your face.
I touched you and you sighed like you do and
Snuggled closer to me
I sighed then too and raised my face.  
That’s when I noticed a glow coming in the window.
I got out of bed and went to the deck where
I saw the sun announce
The morning with a fire burning in the sky and
Dancing on the lake behind our home.  
The world was only shadows then,
Before it lit the day.

I looked back and saw the dawn on you as if
You were the source.
I thought of all the dawns I thought I’d seen,
And I knew that until this moment I had never seen a thing.

I am here like I promised I would be. I have been sitting here for awhile now , remembering you. I wish so badly to be able to see you... To hear you.... Something.... Anything.

From the back yard it all appears normal and as though life is unchanged. It is anything but normal.

The roses.... They are still here. Untouched by time other than some weathering of the stems. How I hate those roses and what they represent.
I'll not touch them. But I will recall their meaning that day.

I want you to know I am so very sorry I was unable to be here for you that fateful day. I would do anything to change that. I am here now and I am not leaving. I will stay here for you, knowing there is nothing I can do to bring you back.

It's 6. You would be home. It's already happening... And no one can stop the horror of your last minutes. It hurts so bad knowing what you had to endure. Remembering the aftermath.

So much left unsaid, undone.... So much life you had yet to live snatched away in a cowardly display of power, control, and pure venom.

It must be nearing that time. I am beginning to feel you. I am beginning to get chills up my spine. The breeze has picked up some. A sparrow went hopping around in your roses.

I should be sitting out here with you. Not sitting out here remembering you. Fires, chatting, watching the kids play as they were growing up...so many memories flooding back all at once. So heart wrenching to know they will never be more than memories ever again.

You should be popping out of the back door and sarcastically asking me, "Why aren't you coming in Chrissy? Too lazy to take your shoes off or what ? " Then would be that laugh.... I loved that that laugh. No more picking back and forth. No more joking around. No more funny sarcasm. No more anything. It's all no more.

I pray where ever you are now that you are happy. That you can still hear and see us all. That you know how deeply we miss you and love you. That you know you will never be forgotten. And that you know I am here today.
I love you so much Deb.

You forced me to play twice,
But thanks to a friend, we got to you before you could dig in.

I was lucky, and I walked away and I was safe.

Two days after a check up
they told me you were back,
"this time it's in your pancreas".

Again it's early and I think I have a chance
but I keep hearing things in my mind like
"three strikes and you're out" or "third time's the charm".
        I would be lying if I said you didn't scare me, but
I'm more afraid of being a coward
And causing my people the extra pain
Of watching me whimper.

And I owe it to those who helped me before,
the ones less fortunate than me who you burned and crippled and killed,
Those who smiled and gave me courage as they were suffering.
  
So we start again...

There is a baby here resting in his mother's arms as she stands in a long line
Of people waiting to be fed.  The mother looks like a child herself;
The burden of the baby seems too much for her-but she knows he is not
As she sways and nuzzles
Him for comfort in a place full of strangers.
He looks at me, an old man in the corner smiling at him, and
Wishing for things long gone and time spent foolishly

Then he turns away to the comfort of his mother's powerful arms,
Safe for now in a moment fading quickly to a time when he
May be an old man in a corner wishing.

I almost remember the first steps he took;
I certainly remember his smile and
The light in those little eyes.

I remember watching him run, play tennis.

Basketball.  

There is a very specific memory of
My son walking into school with me his face open
To the new things in front of him, taking it in,
Holding my hand as he started a journey to today
Where he sits with others taking a Bar Exam.

This being the first steps of new journey for him
One I began so long ago

Home, sick with the winter that
Is trying to **** me being held at bay
By a fire in the corner hearth.

I’m safe as long as it lasts,
So I stir it, and feed it, and draw
Out the fire’s life as if it were my own.

But there is only so much one can do.
In the end they say even the stars will burn out
Overcome by the cold, endless dark.

But that means nothing now, there is only
This fire I have been given to guard
And appreciate.

I wish I had always been so wise.

Somebody died today, a cop in spite of which he’d always been my friend.
But they all were then when hate wasn’t the password and
Niches didn’t outweigh the Lady with the scales.

Think that isn’t true?
I was there then, a lawyer and a prosecutor
And there was so much less to be ashamed of in how it was done…

My friend who died was there too and he did it right
Then taught others to do the same.
When he left, things changed.

People somehow became categories and the law forgot Justice
So, things got bitter and that spawned something worse;
We’re living though that worse stuff now and for those who were there
Then looks so much better than now.

He knew how to do it and he did it for as long as they gave him breath
Now he’s probably doing it still on another level someplace.

Hopefully, it will trickle down.

Safe journey home, captain.

Six letters making a sound that means so much.

The pressure of a month's uncertainty released.

The dark spell ended; the nightmare over;
the dawn burning hot with the promise of more life.

The glow had not faded and I thought of those who never heard
the word.  

Those now gone, those who suffer, and those who love them.

I wonder why I am the one who will sleep well tonight
while the only peace they will find is in their final rest.

They don't call me often, but I always  know it's them
When the calls come late at night, or
At moments that pressures from every other part my life
Are unbearable-

That's when they call

With life or death issues
Who is sick or leaving their spouse or
-God forbid I ever get this one again-
In the hospital having failed a suicide?

They call me and I know in their voices
Things are either wrong or very wrong

And something takes over in me, a calm in my voice
A clear head as my heart, which they can't detect,
Races into overdrive and I have to sit or I will fall.

I listen and hear my words as if they were spoken by someone else
Clear they are, and soft, and loving
I wonder how because they come from a man who feels
The pain of his child as his own pain
Yet the words don't betray that…not so far anyway.

These are the times they listen to me without the dismissal
Of the young for the generation above them.
This is when I am Dad, not "the old man"
I weigh more during these calls but I lose more of me to them.

But I don't miss what I have given
Any more than my mother missed what she gave me.

he was raised by a mother at the end of the line of
women who thought their sons did no wrong;
so he thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing wrong.

the rest of us envied him then,
no chores, more money in his pocket than any of us,
a sense he was never required to play by the rules that bound us,
he had no discipline because it did not apply to him
but you had to like him, he always smiled
and he always had a girl because he was the
one they were warned about and they all wanted
to tame him-they didn't know
you can't tame one who has too many carrots
and has never felt the stick

now we have spent our youth

those who invested it have treasure he'll never value
he spent his like the wind gets spent
and  he has reaped exactly what he spent.
his knees are bowed, his hair a color not found in nature
and his chest has fallen so his belt has to hold it up

but you have to like him, he always smiles
and he always has a girl, though none of them
look the same as when we envied him
        
But he's still smiling.

Waiting for a biopsy result can be its own kind of hell
because you can't be sure whether time
will bring you something good or **** you.

It's not that I fear death yet, even though I know I will,
it's the anticipation of the death process ripping me down
from the inside out while people I love are sorrowful
and try to be brave for me.

And yet, the answer time is hiding could be life
full and warm and wonderful and long,
which is to say death will use a slower process to claim me
and those who love me will have more time to watch
as I fade to the Place we all must go.

It strikes me then these moments, even now
as I bare my soul to you, are something
to be enjoyed rather than spent in dread of what time could bring,
for the ultimate result has never been avoided.

When from this mortal place I go
To lie beneath Time's silent snows
And when my sacred name is but
A broken phase of verbal rust
What matter then that I had lived or laughed or died?

Yet if there is one heart who says
"He touched me as he passed my way.
He shared his smile and loving arms;
When I was cold he kept me warm."
Then your gentle memory will justify my life.

Never quit they told me early in my life,
Push yourself, do what you're told, you'll be rewarded.

Now I look back over their spectral shoulders
And ask where is the reward?

They look at me blankly over the years and I elaborate,
Where is the reward I have been promised?
I am older now, older than you were when you set me in motion,
Older than you lived to be and here I am tied to a life
That did not live up to the promises you gave.

For all my effort,
I did not climb to the top of the mountain,
I do not live in a mansion,
There is no plaque with my name for people to admire,
There is only me and I am often lonely even when I'm not alone.

Having said this, I recalled my mother's eyes and saw her again
Standing there with the amused grin she wore
Just before she told me why I was wrong.

Around her I saw other things from the years that passed.
I felt again what I had done and what I had lived

I knew again the things that made me smile
And those that made me cry.
I saw my children and their children
And will probably see the next to come.
I felt my pains, my loves, my losses and my triumphs.
My friends reached out to me, even those who were gone for years
Embraced me and gave me warmth.
I met my wife again, my true love, and lived our moments over.
I felt my frustrations and my angers,
But they didn't weigh as much now as they had then,
Neither did the scorn of those who had their triumphs over me
For many of them are gone now, some ingloriously
While I plod on into an age they'll never know
With memories they'll never have.

My mother smiled from her distance.
She had always known me best and now she knew what I had seen.
She placed a hand upon her heart and waved as
She faded gently back to the place I will call my home.

This life was my reward and more than I deserve.

His stars were crossed at birth by the ones
Who conceived him.
She who used the act to hold the boy,
He who performed for his own pleasure;
Neither with a care for the son who was a consequence.
Both indifferent until they finally broke
And the son became a pawn in a hateful game between them.
Winner take all, and he was all there was

When he learned this he used it against them
So he  could get what he wanted from one or the other.
And he had never been taught to want healthy things.

They did not care, they each tried to buy him away from the other.
He raised the price each time it was paid
And they paid it yet again to punish the other with his fleeting loyalty.

He thought others would pay when he grew older and went into the world.
Because he knew nothing else; not love or kindness
or even reasonable restraint.
There was just the pretense of human feeling,
Enough to get his way.

He called me from jail today
A girl finally told him no.
She'll never do that again, nor will their unborn child.

At least this game stops here.