There comes the day
when the leaves plummet
at the slightest breeze
giving up of their own accord

bleeding victory of the trees
who lumber on
in winter's eyes--

I now can see
where the robins built a nest
in last year's spring

Under a brilliantly chilled blue sky,
the dusky cedars grow in strength;
While the serenity of newly fallen snow,
glitters in the sunlight's timeless bend.

Lost in an echo of angel's footsteps,
I seek the dimmer sanctuary of shade;
Hiding my inner thoughts from open spaces,
as the winter's sun burns sharper than a blade.

I hear the ringing rhapsodies of cardinals red,
spreading their sweetest notes across the plains;
While resting in the ragged twisted treetops,
the munificence of music's charm remains.

My thoughts were once a clamoring onslaught,
of tormented memories from my current loss;
Yet now my heart's awakened to a paradise,
as I silently relinquish that ill-fated course.

With one deep breath I rise amid the ashes,
of restless slumber's curse which held me back;
But with this wondrous world in resolution,
the hunger and the thirst no longer last.

(3:00 AM)


Just a few hours of sleep not a fiber of strength felt  in a body lying supine the mind so awake a rapid flow of rebelling ideas could not be contained thoughts quake needing a break in the dark of this 3am morning with the ipad providing light the body seems to languish in its own inertia only the chest rises and falls in silence behind the hills sunday dawn glows

Sally

Copyright October 1, 2017
rrab

My grandparent's house
ten-kid-large and sinking
on the corners of remembrance
Remodeled now, to
...tenements

Honeycomb
...the remnants

Irish immigrant and Scottish orphan's child
She sang on the ferry
He fell in love
"The rest is the history of us...."
Wide
as the Connecticut River, grieving--
in their sunset....
____

This-- chair
is his

I am afraid of it-- of his learning
of the shiny badge pinned to his coat
of his dying...
Golden leather of it
soothes
his memory--
of another continent
of the once warmth-- of a distant hearth
so darkened now--
where his head once rested
...his hands
and,
I fear--
his mind....

I will not sit in it
as if he will come back, to take his place
I am afraid of him--
with his chair--
all worshipful and empty
like a high place, abandoned
to the heart attack
not for grandchild play
Seat of Authority
still stamped
beside the standing cold--
brass ashtray
Pipe smoke imagines itself
against the ceiling in the words
of Yates and Milton
He read to them
and somehow--

Paradise is Lost....
_____

This house is cold now-- even in the summer-- cold
Worn as only large families wear
The War
of waiting shadows
--four brothers who were spared

Anna Mae, in charge, too young,
worries in abrupt dark
of dinning room
Her face, haunted--
an archway-- ever empty
by the large and ghostly table
covered by its web of lace--
a bridal veil
of Catholic impossibility...
Anna Mae, held hostage by her thoughts
of darling, Sean...

Aunt Lil's “breakdown”
with cigarette and thorazine  
quaking quiet in her corner

Aunt Nell,
as blind as smart-*** hell
ironing, darning
with threads that thatch
the wounded socks
Holds it all together, scolding--
Brought the welcomed jelly donuts
sneered as Yankees clobbered Boston
all-- while drinking yellow ale

Uncle Eddie-- laughing hoarsely
cracks nuts over a wooden bowl

All along the rain road,
Stopped, like a solitude ray
Escaping the glooms grasp,
Along the ways aglow,
Evening,
Perhaps morning,
Mixed waters in the midst
Of a formless cloud,
      Colored grey or under
The brightest light,

A wandering mind
Never at its now,
     Only then can he be,
Occupancy time
And bellowed grief through
   Mists of thought,
And luminous it may,
How stars see city's night,
    His cloud follows into
The sun,

All along rain road
Slithered in presence,
A wet summer heat
Forms in the cab still,
      Rolling in a flutters drop...