"graying" poems
* * * * *
* * *
*
Faces of friends, of people i met earlier
are glittering stars on this late evening's
dark blue sky...their smiles are tattooed
in my mind...they're hunched, going
lower by the days...slowed down by years.
it must be hard and painful...the arching,
the drooping of the neck, the curving spine,
they endure all, 'til each day's end...they rise
each new dawn...do what they still can do,
lest they stagnate in their aging ponds,
diminish to a state, where food, pills, or
forgotten information are forced on them,
......like drugs, injected into the veins
........................
these wee hours bring back the years...
they have been good...never mind the
hard times...there were, there are good ones
life is a long, wide stream of changing hues,
flowing on and on....my water bears the
colors each new day brings...gray, at times
with sadness and gloom....other days,
blacked by despair...some summers, red,
roseate with glee, or green with life and
hope...blue, when trust is spilling, and
the tranquil sea and sky overwhelm,
with a promise of stability..........white,
when accepting......the unacceptable...
........................
the amber grains and i, are alike
ripened enough to be plucked
be pulled out from an existence...the
signs are known...shown...yet, i wait
for when it is due to happen...and while
waiting, the stalks sway, play and dance
and enjoy the sun and wind...and i,
while i still can...walk, jump, climb hills
and valleys in this mammoth space
of land and water.............called life
...................
the sounds of my days, i still hear,
i am a lute, a harp, a cello...playing
off-key.....out of tune at times,
my strings are my graying hair,
i still can't stop dying the gray
i still want to highlight the dark,
but, one day, all these will cease...
............
one night, my face will be in one of those
many stars...glittering on a dark blue sky
sending a smile, to my loved ones.
...................
(there is no other way,
but forward
all are headed
towards an end.)
Sally
© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
June 26, 2018
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 11:31 PM UTC
He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
“Mount Ephraim”—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death’s dream,
Like the seraphim.
As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
“I think”, said the vicar,
“A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be.”
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.
But ’twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster’s grave.
Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.
12.7k
Blue sky, smooth sailing
Balancing neon lights of my mind's eye
(as glassy waves lap against my feet)
And the innocent sands of a white-gold beach fantasy,
Soft, warm, and as sure as the day.
Graying sky, persevering
Forging ahead through tempestuous waves
(growing faster in speed and height than a father's son)
I cling to the sample of that white sand,
Bottled up in a tiny plastic nip.
Blackened sky, capsizing
Plummeting into jet-black sea
(stained in the lights of my fallen Titan)
The nip shattering, without my notice
Icebergs visible on the horizon of her heart
My sand lost into the radiant black seas
Never to be seen again.
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 26, 2018 at 1:24 PM UTC
It's not the night before christmas and I'm unhappy.
Unhappy about parents who got married because
the *** the had made them believe they were in love.
Unhappy that my dad calls me a spoiled brat for
telling him the truth about ***** woman being a pain
in my *** *****
Unhappy because I over heard ***** woman laughing
telling her friend she got pregnant on purpose to trap
my stupid dad to get money.
You try telling an old man with graying hair and who
is getting fat his young ***** is a greedy ***** who
don't love him.
Unhappy because my dad never told me I was having a brother.
Unhappy because my mom got hurt but now she's
as bad as dad dating men she meets off the internet.
Unhappy because I'm 18 and had a kid after band camp.
Unhappy because I had to take a year off school.
Unhappy because christmas is coming and I don't care.
Unhappy because dad thinks he can buy me stuff thinking
buying me stuff takes the place of a dad.
I don't care about college anymore or what happens
after I graduate from high school.
There is no such thing as love.
There is no such thing as happy marriages.
There is no such thing as dads who give a **** about
kids they don't live with anymore.
There is this thing called me never getting married.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 8:15 PM UTC
#Hair styles
Hair colors
Hairdos
Hairfall
Blonde
Brunette
Redhead
Grey
Or just black
A few strands of which
I found in her comb
In one untravelled recess of wardrobe
An untouched memento
From past two decades
Not graying
Not growing
Undeclined
Undestroyed
black and thick
the only relic
for her son!#
Jan 7, 2014
Jan 7, 2014 at 6:23 AM UTC
Blurry blurry graying sky
Weep the tears that I hide
Shelter me in rain and storm
Another day has come and gone
Oh blurry blurry graying sky
Why do you weep? Why do you cry?
Take another day away
Drown me in the sounds you make
Blurry blurry graying sky
I'm afraid it's time for me to die
The gun's already to my head
Don't you see? I'm better off dead
Don't weep for me, oh graying sky
My time has come and gone by
I pull the trigger without a second though
But don't worry it won't be for not
I'll add some color to your mind
So I won't be leaving you behind
Now blurry blurry lilac sky
How the days have gone by
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't worry about a thing
This was for the best
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 9:16 AM UTC
That season again; familiar fragrances:
of flowers and of emotions.
On shortening evenings
graying skies paint the earth in shades of
anticipation; Snapshots,
joyous memories, of
distant years roll out of catherine wheels
and sparkle-pots, rare
treats and new clothes
for the year; rolling wheels of time, how
loves change, people's
priorities change, events
drive everyone further and farther away.
But memories awaken
from vaults in the heart;
Familiar fragrances, blessed resurrections
always chase
all the doubters away
Yes, this season again; blessed fragrances.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 1:06 PM UTC
she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell
simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs
and so it is - the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas
the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-
and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below
- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-
leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go
the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...
i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -
- autumn, you know?
r ~ 10/6/14
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 1:58 PM UTC
~and for Harlan, who loved this one best~
*"for tandem is the ever-changing, graying color of their fierce attached tenacity"
waking/walking in
careful pacing regular lock steps,
like new cadets, counting cadence,
in perfect silent, almost motionless,
except for the minuscule quivering of
slightly parted moving lips
these two elders,
still now plebes,
freshmen
but of a latter, graduated stage,
demonstrating robustly
the slow shuffle-along,
a well practiced dance conjured
'in tandem'
her arm, crooked in his,
his other hand,
in protective custody of a
knight's armored chain glove
encasing hers,
he, shuffling just,
a precise, intended half-a-beat slower
lest she ever think
that she, ever be a drag upon him
hair, his,
threaded with daily,
new arriving grays,
proudly accepted
as the privilege of
graceful aging
hers,
disguised with periodic outings,
outings for the hidings of life's bookmarks,
conceding nothing ever to
time's lunatic desire to separate them
modest in dress,
styling hints of pasts' elegant,
the man's hat defiant,
daringly jaunty angled,
a small scarf to handbag knotted,
matching his Windsor knotted tie
the passers-by, all smile,
the signal charm of an
end game processional,
thinking so sweet,
yet mine eyes detect more,
something
hardy and radical
a fierce, fierce fierceness,
both fighters in the resistance,
armed with tandem tenacity,
ground given,
but only inches surrendered,
wounds resisted by
scar skin toughened
by the caress of ions bonding
under the pressure
of atomic level mutuality
worn out,
well past Purple Hearts,
no capitulation feared,
to the ever changing,
enemies' new disguises,
they,
a two person platoon,
each,
having the other's back
and I burst into tears on the street,
a train of out loud moans,
even groans emitted,
like a string of perfect pearls
breaking,
clattering on an asphalt terrain
weeping
not
from visions of the inevitable,
sighing
not
from the certitude of a
cycle's uptime ending*
but jealous furious by this reminder delightful,
angry at myself, for having lost so many wasted years,
mine, the loss greatest, for absent was the
fierce tenacity of tandem
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 8:41 PM UTC
Fading Sun...
I was looking at the graying sky.
Trying to chase a fading sun
I peeped above the pointed leaves of the Yucca tree
My eyes were met by little bursts of orange stars
And oblique sunbeams... emitting fading brightness
Through the bushy leaves of the Sampaguita plant.
I was waiting for the moths to appear
Near my lighted candle,
But a gusty wind blew, and made the shell chimes
Sway back and forth...left and right
Round their base and through,
Until all five chimes made pleasant music
With the cool, whirring wind.
I was waiting for the late afternoon sky
To turn to elephant gray
To highlight the yellow glow from the street lamp
So I could test some newly hung Christmas lights
And the capiz lantern outside the french windows
But the rainshowers came all at once
And i found myself wet, from the pouring rain.
I was waiting...and saw a changing sky
The rain, just tip-tapping on the roof
A much cooler air blowing...
Bringing sprays of mist on my face...
Suddenly emerging...the shape of a bat or two,
Flying, crashing, through the dripping red palm tree.
On the horizon, sun was now a dipping balloon
If there's any, i would wait for any kind of moon.
On the garden chair, i sat
And just above me, came a regular stray cat
I heard its paws lightly scratching
The wet surface of the fiberglass roofing.
I still wait...and contemplate on hopes and prayers
I wait...for a lot of dreams to come true
i wait, for this long day to be over
While the night creatures,
In their own tones and tunes
Have started to croon...
Sally
Copyright October 16, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Oct 16, 2015
Oct 16, 2015 at 9:19 AM UTC
God
Might move the deadline
For our Chinese script
But I'm still mad at him
For keeping me up
At the grand hour of 11
In the evening graphing
Over (and over)
Again business charts that
Have crooked smiles almost
As blank and bleak
As their returns on investment.
And speaking of which,
This extra eighty grand I spent
At this school, ogling at textbooks I could
Never work up the courage to read,
Is finally starting to break my back.
Weakly, I'll tell you
How much I hate school—
How her consonants sound synonymous
To "scoliosis,"
And peel off my shirt and prove it to you
But that would be careless.
And careless is something in me hand-bound
By iron clad futures and
Graying dreams,
Perhaps that of a dead stock broker
Feet dangling off the roof of
The Philippine Stock Exchange,
And even then that's
Straying too far from home:
A cardboard box business
Resting by a
Tuberculosis-riddled sea.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
The hammer and anvil,
My tools of Creation,
Have yet to serve their full potential.
Every day, I wield them.
From the depths of my heart and soul,
I muster the strength to forge.
The strength is abundant,
But such strength is thunder
Without proper restraint.
The fault is not my loyal tools –
Certainly not –
It is my own.
It is my hands –
My frail, limp hands –
Hands that can hold a gentle rose
Or caress a snow-white cheek.
Strength is unneeded there.
I am safe among the fields,
Comforted by the embrace of the flowers.
Every evening, I took a tulip
And by the stem, plucked it.
O, the beauty!
The beauty I held in my hands!
The same hands of Promethean might
Could too hold a budding flower.
But Master scowled at me.
He punished me for my hands –
My weak, pathetic hands.
“You must be stronger,” he barks,
“Lift the hammer above your head,
And bring it down with might!
Stoke the fire! Keep it burning!
You must be stronger! Keep working!”
My hands would burn, but still I worked;
Master’s words rang in my skull.
And how they would redden and swell!
With every blow, I yearned for the embrace again
As my gears clicked together
And the machine slammed the anvil.
One evening prior, I fled to the fields
And tried to hide from Master.
While among the tulips, I plucked just one,
And the stem broke in two,
Graying and withering.
Now a corpse in my hand –
Hand of iron and lead –
It is without purpose.
I searched for others to place in its stead,
But all wilted in the iron grasp.
Nov 11, 2011
Nov 11, 2011 at 11:42 PM UTC
Autumn, like an Indian classical dancer, dressed up
Arrives with soft rhymes and quickening steps
She comes aglow, aglow with a rare beauty
Dancing to the bracelet's tinkling song
Her floating robe falls in deep folds around her feet
As she mesmerizes all with moves full of grace
Viewing the flaming colours in assorted display
We are apt to wonder if Nature carefully saved up
All that is best for the closing grand finale
Autumn tints look enchanting all through the land
With pervading green, offset by crimson, citrus yellow
Flaming red, lustrous gold and a faded russet
The air stays crisp and sweet in the ripening fields
While stray clouds ramble in flawless turquoise sky
When autumn is thus all agog like a frenzied dervish
It gives us morbid pictures of death and decay
The trees wrestle to free themselves of their worn cloaks
Causing a cascade of withering autumn leaves
Now they fall scattered in endless stream and lie in piles
Like charred carcasses after a fierce forest fire
The rustle of dry leaves blown by the wind
Falls in our ears with the gabble of migrating birds
Pale sunshine sifts through leafless trees of maple and oak
All those leaves once stayed regal in stations high
But now tossed out like worthless chaff
They come nose diving and fall several meters below
Spreading a hazel curtain over the moist earthen crust
When trampled mercilessly by careless feet
They silently mourn their thankless fate
Graying that comes at the end of each autumnal fall
Reminds us of the pall of gloom that awaits
It is disturbing like the parting song of birds
As they fly southward before the fall of winter
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 9:09 AM UTC
a certain morning stiffness
in your joints
you find your face
in the bathroom mirror
and wish you hadn't
the puzzled wisdom
of middle age
wavers from your eyes
deepening wrinkles
of many laughs
many frowns
how many more?
nevermore ?!
the room becomes aflutter
with poesque ravens
the presence of absences
fills the void
your life is on the brink
of deconstructing itself
to the periphery of the universe
a discourse of silence
forever becoming ... becoming ...
what...?
nevermind!
so
you close your eyes
hard
for a minute or two
when you look again
you meet the stare
of a not-so-bad-looking
man in his best years
graying sideburns
receding hairline
20 pounds too many
BUT
a firm decision
to work them off
still a bit sleepy
yet determined
to shave
get dressed
have breakfast
and teach
that wonderful seminar
on 19th century poetry
to eager graduate students
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 4:44 PM UTC
today, demeter is nothing but
a bewildered ghost in a haunted meadow,
skinning flowers as they weep:
they're neatly lined as in an execution,
the creek, a boneyard,
a lair of sorrows for her dazed *********
today, the sun desperately combs
through tree branches
for an abandoned nest of grief
but its hands just stray too far
and poke at a meadow's wound —
nails cutting through graying skin.
this is a poem written by a bystander.
this is a poem written by a witness.
this is a poem written by the victim.
the world blurs its lines today
and demeter is nothing
but a forgotten ghost
in a town painted new.
Oct 30, 2021
Oct 30, 2021 at 12:59 AM UTC
If you are an aging book tossed on an empty shelf
Left to dust,
I will be the librarian who remembers you.
Even in my graying days and wrinkles,
I will find you within the musty bindings
Upon the shelves.
I will pluck you off,
Bypassing all of the others
That try and grab me as I walk
The narrow aisles.
I will push them back into their place
For you are the only one I have eyes on.
I will find you and blow the dust
Off your shoulders.
I will run my fingers over you,
Feeling your cover, your back, your spine
Before opening you and sifting through your pages,
Reading your story and discovering your scars
Where the corners have been folded over.
But I will love you long before
I ever open your cover and begin to read.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 6:07 PM UTC
I was born a butchers boy
I never lacked for meat
Purse strings tight as a bishop’s ***
My childhood lacked for sweets
My sweethearts now a butchers wife
Two lamb shanks for a ha penny
We waste our coin and copper hair
By eating sweets a plenty
The merchant comes to peddle time
The reaper dreads his arrival
Those with coin and copper hair
Can purchase their survival
I will die a butcher’s death
My sweets have sealed my fate
With empty purse and graying hair
The merchant comes to late
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 6:35 AM UTC
When You Should Be Doing Homework
You dig for your future inside a mirror,
Excavating pimples, drowning in your pupils,
Wondering if the road map that gathers around
The belt of your iris will make you look wise
After fifty years of blinking—or
If the folds in your skin will bookmark a chapter
Where you let them close for too long
Memorializing a missed-out stripe.
You lean closer to the better half of yourself,
The one that gets to look real
in a cold glass surface
Without enduring the social blemish
that comes with authenticity
And a lack of caked on makeup.
You count the pores on your nose.
The weight of silent opinions and swallowed up worries
Split the edges of your lips wide open like a sore.
You look inside; behind the fillings, under the flood of saliva, inside the flesh of your gums,
For the shelves where advice for your unborn children
will sit and gather dust; yellowing like old bones and tasting like coffee.
Don’t marry your mattress.
The way to a man’s heart is bacon.
Sticks and stone don’t usually look like sticks and stones.
If those children become anything like you are now,
it’s a safe bet they will have selective deafness.
You imagine your graying hair and huskied voice
spewing life lessons drilled into you
by your parents, Hallmarks cards, and people who call themselves poets—
*Make sure your smile matches the color of the dry cleaned heart your wear on your sleeve.
If you want to do well in school, learn how to ********
Never own / wear anything studded.
One day you’ll want to die your hair a rebellious color, thinking it’s cool: go for it. To hell with the people who will give a ****
One day you’ll want a concert t-shirt with wholes and stains that spell out **** go for that too, you’ll learn the hard way those are the hardest to wash*.
You step away from the echo of your eyes in the mirror,
feeling sorry for the future responsibilities
you’ll try hard to raise into good people.
Mom and Dad don’t always know best.
Don’t look in the mirror and think about the future. You’ll only see your hair gray.
Do your homework.
Keep your socks clean.
Use protection.
You pull yourself out of your mouth
Gulp down the darkness in your pupils,
Letting your face return to normal—the road map sinking into your skin, disappearing.
That future is too close for you to conjure it in the mirror.
Even without the weight of wrinkles,
Your eyes are too tired to stay open.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
Our father liked to play a game.
He would count each hawk
preying, circling above veiny tree lines
graying like shadows of industry.
There’s a redtail, he would say, look
at its proud chest and talons of mastery. Our
eyes searched for the creature, noses
pressed to cool glass and 65MPH speed.
Sometimes we’d catch the bird with two eyes, one eye
or none. Meanwhile, our father never took his eyes
off the road, fixed on painted yellow lines stretching
to heartlands down New York’s I-90 West.
With age my eyes became engaged, detecting
the slightest movement peripherally. Rods
in retinas distinguished plump plumes from leaflet
tufts, razor beaks from thorny stags, white breast from
billowing plastic bags. My sideways scan
of leafy fringe is an artifact of habit
when traveling down state roads of this infra-structured
nation. I search for evidence of its natural relation,
beyond all that is manufactured by the jelly-
spine of convenience, beyond wheels spinning
at deafening speed, beyond the grubby hands of greed.
Still, our connection to place is still here and Earthly,
coexisting in delicacy, like the hawk’s nested-blend
of twig and trash. I trust there is a chance for us yet,
despite cloudy puddles of progress, despite integrity
lost in capital gain, despite a forgotten native name.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC
Don't fight the thunder when it comes,
let go your brick and brush.
Sop up the graying clouds with
every bit of lung, step
away from your paint.
Your labor
has always been in vain.
Surrender your body to the wind,
trust its wings, trust its landing.
Watch closely
come the tearing of the torrents,
don't be afraid
of what washes ashore.
Allow every strike of lightning,
let your bones shake themselves brittle.
You will not die.
You will not die.
Breathe in the roaring waves,
slowly sink to its depths.
Avoid the struggle if you can,
and let it be so.
Let it be so.
And when all has billowed over,
keep open your eyes
keep open your fists
and know that all this
is where spring begins.
Jun 1, 2020
Jun 1, 2020 at 2:21 AM UTC
Across the sky is a blaze of scintillating gold
When the dawn quietly begins to unfold
Each morn is a fresh wonder
As the night willfully bows down to surrender
Every minute is a novel creation
With scenes and sights of great sensation
With every passing hour, new vistas unfold
Bringing insights varied and visions manifold
The blades of grass glow in sparkling dew
As the sun makes his customary march anew
Over the expanse of the brightening sky
Feathered folks to different directions fly
Here and there is many a plant in bloom
That dispels all clouds of graying gloom
Bees hum round opening flowers
Squirrels come out from their hidden covers
The gust of breeze that blows over
Brings scents so sweet in the morning air
The mountains that tower so high
In grandeur seem to touch the sky
The cuckoo and the magpie sing in joy
Their nestlings have nothing to annoy
The cascading falls sound the stringed trumpet
Running down from the mount’s heady summit
As Nature thus pipes a thousand songs
In capturing sounds and melodious tunes
In my heart is born a heavenly melody
That I shall pour out in euphonious rhapsody
Sep 15, 2016
Sep 15, 2016 at 10:41 PM UTC
There I stood
In a long hallway
Stretching thinly
To a lit point
Lined with doors
Opening as they closed
Its prisms transposing
Euphoria as it shone
Lifting my chest
It dragged me breathless
Down its stretches
As I was reflected
In my own projections
Of sentients
Until innocence
Was all there is
And that is
Where thoughtless
Narrative lives
Where languidly it gives
Wordlessness meaning
And that is
Where fraughtless
Intentions can win
Acting replacing thinking
Incentive in Zen
Awaking and thinking again
Was is and gonna be
Everything I believe
Even while deceived
In sets of themes
Numeric categories
And the tragic stories
Of grander things
Things of grandeurous dreams
That I wring out in the sink
While winking
The well wishes away
In splashes
Of graying
Paint
My hate
Is displayed
In the mourning
Of Mondays
And with relatable monotony
And some mundane
Everything goes back to the same
Or at least
That's the philosophy
Sep 7, 2013
Sep 7, 2013 at 11:13 PM UTC
Skirt so yellow and bright
Eyes blue and wide,
with lips pursed right.
“Where is your joy,” she sighs?
Cotton shows years of wear
still flows yellow, and bright.
Her lean body craves to share
him hard and yielding tonight.
After she threw the bridal wreath
their joy spilled like carpenter’s glue.
No longer did they sample from beneath
yellow skirt and sweater taut and blue.
Her scent is a flower named dangerous,
so he struggles, pulls away; all the while
wanting his graying head to rest
upon her breast and relish the joy in her smile.
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC
precipitation's anticipation of change
diffused morning light
the mustiness of first rain
a misty visibility hiding distant hills
a graying of the cityscape
skyscrapers in clouds
construction's crane quieted
in the mix of old and new
a slow rush hour
washing the street's grime
a coolness to my eyes
a slight chill in my bones
Autumn colored leaves swaying with breeze
on half empty trees
slanted raindrops incessantly blustering
a beautiful day
where only seagulls dare to fly
eight peeping eyes with healing hands
too good to help her to the restroom
"I'll call a nurse"
they just poked in to take a peek
feel her leg's edema
and inform me of possibility's progress
a colonoscopy?
a transfusion?
time keeps asking for more time
morning meds
an IV
a blood draw
a blood test strip
another trip to the restroom
a kind older gentleman's help
he thought I was her father
it's raining hard again
gutters like rivers
storm drains splashing white water
more skyline has gone missing
umbrellas wrestling wind
raindrops rilling down a picture window
as afternoon sheds it's light
as I watch sleep's breaths
her hunger awakens and feistiness returns
"Don't they feed their patients here?"
they never told us to call food services
another blood pressure reading
another blood draw
another trip to the restroom
and it's all good
a colonoscopy evaluation
maybe Thursday or Friday...
looks like time got her wish
Oct 9, 2011
Oct 9, 2011 at 5:53 PM UTC
She stands with dignity in the middle of the field
Perks her ears at the sound of my boots.
She swings her big head toward me and looks.
I whistle to her, knowing it will never work.
She will wait for me, but never come.
I approach her and slip the halter over her ears,
Kiss her nose.
I brush her graying mane, and try to pretend she is not old.
And she trots with pride and
Is not embarrassed when she trips.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 10:46 AM UTC