looking for something in the sunday paper

i flipped by accident to local weddings

yet missed the photograph until i saw
your name among the headings

and there you were, looking almost unchanged

your hair still long, though now long out of style

and you still wore that stiff, ironic look...
the one that was your smile

i felt as though we sat there face to face

my stomach tightened

i read the item through

it said too much about both families...
too little about you

finished at last, i put the paper down

i remembered old feelings,
my mind aflame—
wondering -

who is this man ?
this stranger whom you loved...
this printed name

and yet i clipped it out to put away...
inside a book like something i might use

a scrap i knew i wouldn’t read again,
but couldn’t bear to lose

the seagulls wailed
as they skimmed across the angry river's surface

on the horizon,

green islands
and a puffy line of
cumulonimbus
clouds hovering above them

the brilliant sunshine reflected off of the river's surface resembling an abundance of diamonds

i can hear the waves
'swooshing'
up against the pier
and the side of my docked yacht

a group of young boys decide to grab a swim in the boat launch area

i grab a bottle of  deep eddy lemon
and fill my glass with ice and straight deep eddy and lemon

just living out another day here on the niagara river mere moments... ..

from the mighty Niagara Falls

we turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire

so much
to be done ,
the unpacking,
the mail
and papers ...
the grass needed mowing ....

we climbed stiffly out of the car

the shut-off engine ticked as it cooled

and then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground

we went out to the meadow;
our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate,
and were grateful

the handle of the screen door

i grab hold as the sun set tries to hide

mischievously laughing ...almost infantile

the shadows join in
with peeks and the boos...

their darkness anything but frightening

as i enter my home
summer's reflection astonishes me


awe me..
reflections off of anything that shimmers

the sun plays for the last time this day

i draw my curtains on another day...

the only light allowed is light that i control

my feet now slide and slip on the showers suds

an owl now asks ,WHO is listening to its own idle chatter

by the wolf howling moonlight,

WHO is merely assumptions

crickets sing almost to fill the void of any silence

i awaken with a lullaby by birds...
birds that coo and ease my ill fading soul...

the song i yearn when i grab the handle of the screen door

never am i
one to dare and fill the air
with dead unnecessary words

uninteresting words that just fly by
the ears and the hearts of the undeserving -
stoically portrayed.

"i'm sorry" means i'm sorry when meant

don't fill the air with those words
just to say you said them

most often,
those 2 words together ( i'm sorry )
are never felt intensely enough anyway

why you ask?

because the "apologist" -
habitually utilizing them -
has dead eyes -
a generic tongue -
and coldest of hearts.