thoughts upon my newly acquired orphan state.  i am fifty two and then a little more it should not matter that  i can  no longer knock and open that door to sit in the corner and quietly speak of matters small and large, joyous and bleak....it should not matter for now i am grown  with others to love a child of my own.... it should not matter  but oh how it does... it leaves me speechless, somedays and sometimes turned inside out....on a raft  alone in a sea of  thoughts.... all this in a grief so quietly my own... yet we go about the closing down of a life eighty years and more, taking things so precious to the local opportunity store... consoling ourselves with the mantra that mother loved her charities as we give away the clothes she wore.... we pack, up the unit in which she lived.....pore over the photos showing the love of the life she lived...we converse about memories and family lore...we laugh, we cry, we laugh some more....we note that the  photos we love the most are  those of her holding grandchildren  on  lap and in arm... we talk about the fierce, fierce love that would allow no lasting harm... to befall those in her care...we also talk about the fashions of clothes and  of hair....then... there are the silences so profound...... when we all realize once more she will no longer be around....at least in the physical....in our hearts she will alway be near and dear .....we pack up her rugs and chair....her cookbooks  and clutter, bed bath towels, a myriad of things  in my mind i hear her mutter... such a fuss, such a palaver!....finally all is done...
her  place a shell....empty and forlorn ...we walk out the door as we quietly mourn.....we three orphans, my brothers and me....
stand in the moonlight and stare at the sea....all thinking the same ....poor orphaned me....

Drinking wine by candle light
Small flame that might've
toasted music
Holding off instead
a flood of grief
Some wall I must retain
Some hope I still maintain
called life
...or was it love or...

one of those foolish things....

It's not important now
I am not known for caving-in
complaining
Not one for asking
nor for needing much
to hold my own...

I just need everything--

Boundless days of youth
forever slipping  
Only one dream yet remains

Wash over  
tender tide
The sea has found the breast
Seals it with its mouth
a hunger
lunging toward its home
of earth-warm woman
a deep surround

Longing there to cry
to take her back
to take it out on all
the taking

hurt of it
the bitter
and the knowing
loss of song

I can't recall

...The music that I cannot make
for lack of everything

The hollow wind funneled the voice
of the distant night-train crossings,
awakening  a  familiar  silence
hanging from the vast wilderness sky
A restless heart hearkening the echoes,
imagining  a  runaway  Pullman
flew away off the rails,    airborne
on the winged wind headed north

Winter  pausing  for a moment
in  the  shadows  of  familiarity,
as if parsing the unspoken breathings
in an  echoless  surrendered sigh;
uncertain if tacit words set free
could ever allow a heart broken
        to feel whole again

There  is  no  absolving  voice
that whispers in a solemner tone :
        Death  has  no  mercy  ―  
love remains marooned in the wake ,..
and it feels like the world’s gone mad
letting time be the arbiter of perpetuity

The fading dream of a motherless child;
a wish to be held maternally
fell to the ground with a thud,
        breaking the silence,
dissipating formless as the shape of water

Muted cold lips so full of questions
morphing into fugitive sighs
come the unsettled night;
when shadows disappear like frail memories
that  passed  too  soon  to  grasp,
thickly palpable as the warm breath
a winter bird alone on frosty branch

There’s no fear in braving the darkness
in the  winter wilderness of life borne alone
There’s no way of knowing what you’ll find
down that long empty road back home
Life just flashes by silently before your eyes
        through the windshield
    of countless miles and miles

And there’s nothing you can do about it ―
It’s like hearing the moment of truth in a lie
when all I was looking for
was  how I got here in this now,.. yesterday

only finding a hopeless poet
scribbling  slightly stained pages,
spilling  a  bitter  sweet  dream ...


        harlon rivers ... February 2018


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My Grandson is now ten and
growing like the proverbial ****,
but still young and sweet enough
to yet sit upon my knee,
to share moments of joy
and reflection, or for me
to tell him a story.

He still giggles when I tickle him,
and thankfully he's not too old to
give and receive hugs and kisses.
Best of all he never fails to tell me he
loves me whenever he arrives or leaves.