always remember me smiling
my corny jokes
my eyes twinkling
my desires, Peace

remember me as one might
a summer breeze
a flower bud
a blade of grass, proud

a sated satyr a statue posed
next to a corn stalk
next to a sunflower
smiling forever, wild

the sun over a mountaintop
peeking glowing
a small piece of a seed
in the wind, blowing

ten beams into the building I knew her
she was the tiller from a seagoing vessel
a sway a leech to the port a missing tender
a long lost vestige of her cargo
the gold the plates
the necklaces traded
all on the bottom
and this tenth beam now holding the center of the floor of
this old building straight and level
had her strength once floating
on a sea ridge a foam of shore
crashed into
and broken apart
and spent and forgotten and under dark tides
was alone
in her failure so long ago
that sent men and cargo to the depths
she staggered again into being
taken from a watery death to live
as the  support
of this
odd sort of haunted structure
proud now and determined
wood finished and raw and old  and bowed yet
stout and proud
and I sensed her ten beams in

I take off my boots
and throw one at the moon
tonight, the starlight is mute
after listening to the news
watching politicians kissing
the President's *** like it
was a ruby on the Pope's ring
while the people weep
in the streets, crying out about
all the orders from above,
no more doves or butterflies,
no gardens, no dreaming, no
poets, no brooms, no hope
for the sick and weary, only
last straws, executive actions,
anti-immigrant policies.

A questionable son
the one
who chose auto repair
and serial monogamy
finds the golden road
to Washington, D.C. respectability

What does his father do?
He buys him a briefcase

And everything followed
and flowed
from that mineral moment

A career
a wife, in time
a briefcase never used
but full of good wishes
murmurs
and marching orders

The road ahead
seemed wide open
stretching west
into a golden glow
and open it was
purged of hindrance
by the workings of time

So here am I
that golden road
now behind me

Life seems a sand castle
on a castle of sand
with the tide pouring in

It is that last ember
glowing as the fire
goes dark

Tomorrow and tomorrow
beckon from a fabled future
they bid me adieu

I can smell the scent
of decay in this
warm summer's wind
kiss the sweetness of it
on my lips

I do not part willingly
hold out my hand
for every shred of
summer's light

But at the end of it
pack my poor bag
and make a crow's march
home
where I belong