Poem

The Gray Man

Here comes a man
Bent over and gray
Should I be afraid
Of his desperate ways?

He passes my spot
And smiles with a wave,
not heavy with life
Like a gray man to save.

Life is a struggle
Life is a quest.
Some of us best it,
many oppressed.  

What is the key to making the trip
With nothing at birth, no sort of a script?
Maybe the answer is simple to find
a smile we need, til the end of the line

Time

…is the child’s years, drawing out days to weeks and weeks into months, as though summer may never end. Then autumn begins the cycle again, drawn out endlessly by our innocence.

…is the desperate moment where time is suspended, the mind holding back the floodgate of pain and loss, keeping the future at bey for an eternal second or two.

…is an elder’s years, where one month tumbles over another like books from the past, falling to earth, unopened in their speedy descent, memories slipping secretly away, stealing the stories as though someone else coveted them.

Where are all of the moments, the days of joy and sadness, the threads that make up our lives? When we are gone, do they linger briefly in nostalgia for a life? Or do they turn to dust with our bodies, settling in deserts and mountain tops, keeping vigilance for us?

What was that like?

The first day of school
The last time speaking to my mother
The first time I lost someone
The last time my daughter needed me

The first road trip
The last road trip
The first boyfriend
The last one

The first moment of awe
The last of pain

What is that like?

Our lives are made up of memories,
Of flashes, moment after moment.
No real yesterday or tomorrow.
Just our stories.
Our memories.
Our lives.

I have some friends who don’t visit me much.
They are deer and a raptor and owls and such.
Creatures of all kinds who signal a change,
Beings who escort those leaving this plane.

I call them the Soul Keepers, who protect and defend,
On our mysterious journeys at life’s sudden end.
They hold our spirits in their hearts
and insure we arrive safely in other parts.

Watch for the Soul Keepers, as they are kind,
They come as a comfort for those left behind.

Completion

I want to take pictures of barns falling down
I want to write poems about my happy days of yesterday
I want to go on long trips into the desert and wake up joyous
I want to feel love for every person I see
I want to trust I belong as a being in the world forever
I want to be grateful for life, my own and all lives
I want to see the beauty in the clouds every day

What do my wants have to do with completion?
Something
Maybe everything since they can all be done right now.
And right now.
And right now.

Making love in the afternoon sun by a creek
Smelling roses in the dark, walking a quiet dark road together
Hiking over the eucalyptus hill to rip off our clothes and ease into the hot tub, the sea raging below us
Listening to the drum circle at the beach bonfire
Shaking the glistening water in a mason jar under the full moon

Eating a caramel donut, riding a bicycle around the ocean highway, crying
Lying on top of my garage, staring at the sky full of stars, crying
Watching a bubbling caldron of chili on the mountaintop, the dark waves far below, crying
Living in a lean-to by the ocean on El Sur ranch, homeless, crying
Packing up my ‘53 bright blue Chevy truck, heading to San Francisco alone, crying

She was the older
Always the best
I was the second
And never felt seen

She didn’t want me
But I dragged along,
Trying to protect her
as my special one.

I made due with second
As she won every game
But I tagged along
Hoping to do the same.

At 16 she shouted and cried each day
And I left the house to avoid the display
I shuffled the leaves in the cold windy fall
And wished she would go away, any way at all.

At 17 she grew wilder and I watched her dissolve
Wondering where we were going, wanting it solved
Then on a cold December day she died,
Leaving me shivering in the holiday snow

Sixty years have passed and I’ve lived a great life
And I see I decided to be brave and daring
But finally I forgive me for wanting her gone and
Instead I thank her for silently urging me on.