WORD POWER

She chanted it defiantly:
"Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but names will never hurt me,"
wielded it like a warrior
backed up against a wall.
I don’t remember what
we had called her,
no doubt some ugly word
we’d heard a grown up
hurl in a rage.
Surely we didn’t know
what it meant, knew only
that it could hurt,
and when we saw
the tears on her face,
took malicious glee
in knowing we’d scored
a hit, no matter how many
times she repeated the mantra
her mother had taught
her to say.

ENTRY ROOM

Hated getting out of bed
that winter I worked for Bob Kurtz
whose farm was up the road a ways
Hated getting up two hours dark
before the school bus came
so I could help Bob milk his damn cows
Hated what I had to do --
pour feed into the troughs
lug steaming pails to the milkhouse
fork manure into the spreader
But mostly hated
the getting up and going

Icy air hit me as I left the house
swung my legs onto my bike
lunged into the darkness and the wind
the cold amazed me every time
stunned my throat my lungs
burrowed through my clothing to the skin
I shivered--shook--ground
my teeth in useless freezing rage

Strain up the hill and--at long last--
see the gable light beckon like the star the wise men followed
park the bike outside, yank open the stable door
cattle warmth surrounds--embraces--blesses
I sob with glad relief

You're late again says Bob
but merry Christmas anyway
he tosses me a ribboned Hershey bar and grins

Some say it's sad that Christ the king
had just a cattle trough for crib
I say a warm stable on a bone-cold morning
feels like the entry room to heaven

Maybe--for the Child--the entry room to earth

CHRISTMASTIME AT SUNSHINE NURSING HOME

"I think they come at eight,"
Liz tells me, doling out my pills
like Mama used to hand me coins
for Sunday school, then knot them
in the corner of a hanky
to fold around my fist.

"Who's going to come?" I ask.
I think she knows I know,
knows I ask it just to keep her
in the room to talk some time away.
With Meg, across the hall,
she lingers long and chats.
I'm not like Luke says Mary was.
She kept it -- what the shepherds said
and all -- and "pondered in her heart."
I'm sick to death of that.
Pondering, I mean.
Bedfast with my busted hip,
a scrawny, clipped-wing bird,
I'd rather talk than ponder, that's for sure!

"The kids -- the carolers," says Liz.
"From Prince of Peace in town."

They come each year and crowd
inside the entranceway to sing,
huddled like a herd of frightened fawns.
Their cheeks burn rouge-red from the cold.
"So young and angel-faced," Meg will say again.
"They sing so sweet."

I'll only hear, not see, this year.
Unless ...
Once, I think, they sang
and then walked through the halls.
Some stuck their heads in doors,
said "merry Christmas" and "God bless."

I hope they will again this time.
I'll have a question for them,
maybe more than one.
"What grade are you in school?" I'll ask.
"Tell me who you are, tell me what you dream,
where you want to go, what you hope to be."
And one of them will come and sit
and talk awhile and maybe hold my hand.
And be for me an angel of the Lord
with tidings of great joy.

YOU DECIDE

"God . . . will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more . . ."
- Revelation 21:4

Let’s say you were being
taken on a tour of heaven
shown around the place
invited to ask questions
and let’s suppose you were
tremendously impressed
(as you no doubt would be)
until finally when the tour
was ending you asked
the only question that mattered
. . . what about grief?
and your guide said
It Is Not Permitted

Would you stay?

CONTRAST

Our new neighbors have put up
their Christmas lights, have festooned
their shrubs with them, spread
them across the bare branches
of their maple tree, trailed them
over the ledges of their windows, strung
them fetchingly around their front
door. It’s lovely. Really, it is.
You might even, if you are given to
hyperbole, call it breathtaking.

However, it makes me think that
our usual practice of turning on
our front porch light might, this year,
be regarded, by some, as inadequate.

AT THE BIRD FEEDER

There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
And I saw the angels which stood before God and to them were given seven trumpets.
-- Revelation 8:1-2

If you stand perfectly still
long enough and close
your eyes you will hear
miniature explosions,
the whirr of wings.

Imagine, if you like,
that you are standing
in the court of heaven,
part of a number
which no man can number
and all creation is on tiptoe,
breathless, waiting
for the fanfare.

Don’t be surprised to find,
to the amazement of both
the chickadees and yourself,
that you have fallen on your knees.

FRUGALITY

The woman whose seat next
to mine on the Philly to Chicago
flight is -- I don’t know -- say
70, maybe 75.
She’s reading a biography
of Truman. We chat about
that and the weather and
the coming holidays. "So what
do you want for Christmas?"
I say for no reason whatsoever.

Her face clouds (yes,
faces really can do that)
then brightens: "A Lexus."

I mumble something about
cars, the good ones and not so
good ones, tell her I drive
a Chevy and she laughs.

"I’m not laughing at you.
I’ve had the same
car for 20 years.
A Lexus! For heaven’s sake,
what would I do with a Lexus?"

Which makes me wish I could
send one to her house
tied up in a red ribbon.

SATISFACTION

You do it each November --
prop the extension ladder
up against the gutters,
climb up, shaky,
look down as little as possible,
stretch out your arm,
pull the leaves,
twigs, and other detritus
towards you and
fling them earthward.

When you’re done
you go inside and wait
for the cold rains.

You remember there
are few things more
gratifying than listening to
the gurgle of water

tumbling

through

the

downspout

WHAT WAS AND WHAT IS

Dog Walkers -- October

Until last spring
we could walk our yellow lab
down a rutted stony lane
flanked on both sides
by dock, thistle and dandelion

till we came to charred wood
that once was a home
and next to it what must have been,
years back, a small barn.
Just beyond it stood

the only building that had
survived the fire. Across the top
of the door some wit had
painted in bold precise letters:
Ye Old Outhouse.

All of it has disappeared.
Big earth-moving machines
scraped and smoothed it
all away. New houses have
sprung up like mutant mushrooms.

Now we walk Dinah somewhere else.

　
Contractor -- Last January

When we draw up the master
plan, let’s have the street
run between these two foundations.
I think we can use some of those
stones somewhere or maybe
we can sell them to whats-his-name,
that old guy over in Waynesboro
who still does mason work.
Do you think any of the wood
from that old outhouse is salvageable?


Home Owner -- November

Well, we did pay a little
more than we planned to
but we really like it.
The contractor promised
we could move in by
the first of last month
and he only missed it by
a week and a half.

Yes, it’s a great view to the west.
That’s the Tuscarora ridge
over there and I’m told
that the grove of cedars
down there used to be
a home for deer.
The neighbors are nice,
I guess, we don’t really
know them very well.
Lots of kids though.

Come on in. It’s turned colder.
I think Kelly has coffee on.

Oh, it used to be a farm.
Last week a man and woman
came by, walking their dog,
said there back of our garage
is where the outhouse was.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

CONFESSION

He comes into the Macdonalds
wearing a three piece Armani
suit and carrying a black attaché case.

We see him check his watch
(it looks expensive),
glance peevishly at the harried mother
herding three pre-schoolers
to the seat next to his
where he sits eating
his Egg Macmuffin and scanning
the Wall Street Journal,
and, when it beeps,
snap open his cell phone
and say half a dozen words
to the caller.

We watch him take another
quick swallow of coffee
then scuttle out the door
to his gleaming silver
BMW and place the case and cup
on the roof, bend over to retrieve
something that has fallen
to the ground, get in,
close the door, back up
and glide away.
The last we see of him
and the BMW
the case and cup are still sitting
in their place on the roof.

I’m ashamed to say
we fervently hope
they both stay there
till he hits the Interstate.

GENESIS 1:1

In the beginning . . .

it says which confused me
because my mother said
God always was
and always will be

that’s what eternity means
which didn’t make sense
because how could there
be something that

didn’t have a beginning
or an end and it sometimes
kept me awake
trying to figure

it out because if my mother
said so it had to be true
she never lied to me
except for Santa Claus

which she explained
really wasn’t a lie
just a way of playing
Let’s Pretend just for fun

FIRST DEATH

When I was four, Spotty,
our almost beagle,
had the misfortune to wander
down to the Oberholtzer farm
where their dog, a misnamed
monster they called Beauty,
savaged him.
He’s barely alive, my brother said
at the supper table.
My father said I guess we’ll
need to . . . um . . .
take care of him.
I want to help I said
You can’t my brother said.
Let him at least go see him
my mother said.
There were big red holes
all over Spotty who stood
shivering in the barn
and looked at me
the way he looked when
he did something bad.
You better go in now
my father said.
Why do you have the ax?
I said.

ARREST

"Look at the birds of the air." -- Matthew 6:26

Eight miles on the Tuscarora Trail
in elegant October
the hickories an occasional
canopy of gold

I plog along
left knee aching from
careless wrenching on ancient
limestone slabs on the ridge
where two counties drop away
on either side

Hawks and vultures glide
overhead silent as stones

Then in a tangle of vines
and scrub oak
there is dart and twit

I stop

I am accosted
accused
cursed mercilessly
by a bird half the size
of my fist

Wren

LIFE LESSON?

Our Welsh terrier was a wanderer,
leave the door open and you would
spend the next hour ringing
neighbors’ doorbells and asking:

Did you see a black and tan dog . . .?
So on sunny afternoons
we’d tie her leash to the porch
post for an hour or so.

That day our daughter, age 10, came
home from school and found her
hanging by her leash
her paws barely touching the ground.

Come and help me bury her
I said. She shook her head, sobbing.
I placed the warm body
in her arms and insisted.

We walked to the woods.
I dug the hole. She held Tess,
then laid her gently down.
Toss some dirt on her I said.

Was I wrong?

POSTMORTEM

At the corner the 3 o’clock
bus from the middle school
spills three girls, two boys,
who trickle toward us
then stop to look at a lump.

Ooh . . . gross is what
(I think) the girls say
and skitter away.
The boys stay
and stare and hoot.

We approach.
Dinah’s upraised tail
anticipates epiphany
and there it is --
squashed squirrel.

That’s so cool one says,
its eyes popped out like that.
I tug the leash. Let’s go
I say to her and pull hard.
Let’s just take his word for it.

BURN PILE

All summer long
I cut and pulled and carried them here --
hedge clippings
fallen branches from the big oaks
dessicated peonies
trimmed off spruce shoots
all of them gathered now
like a congregation waiting to be fired

I am the striker of the flame
that sputters
crackles
then leaps upwards
into orange roar

Who can not believe in transformation
Who would be foolish enough to think
I did it

HOW IT'S DONE

take a bolt of cloth, pins,
thread -- dress

take stone, wood,
nails -- house

take sound, silence,
sound -- concerto

take nothing,
all -- cosmos

WHEN SEPTEMBER COMES

When September comes
there are signs of departure
Canadian cold creeps down and
nudges mugginess southward
green begins to leave the leaves
summer birds start booking flights
light retreats from both ends of days

And you child this first day
go bravely on your way to the bus stop
preparing us for a going forth
that a decade or so from now
will be for . . . good

THERE ARE TOO MANY MACHINES

there are too many machines
making too much noise
whirrs and thumps and thuds
beeps and buzzes
wails and moans and roars

find the silence
hold it
hold it
rest in it

ahh!

PARTY CRASHERS

You can’t see them,
but they’re there,
nibbling, chewing, munching,
stuffing themselves for dear life.
It’s as if you’ve hung out a sign:
WELCOME TO THE- ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT GARDEN CAFETERIA.

Like most uninvited guests,
they prefer to keep to themselves,
unobtrusive, not lingering long
at the punch bowl,
gliding smoothly, quickly, away
as you approach.

You can’t see them
but they’re there all right.
Look what they’ve done to the beans!

HOW TO WRITE A POEM

It’s conversation mostly
You listen to what others have been telling you
about themselves
about yourself
about laughter and tears and God

Some of them you’ve lived with worked with . . .
your mother
Bob Kurtz who hired you to help with the milking
Miss Bishop who made your memorize lines from Macbeth
Nelson your barber who talked louder than the radio he always kept turned on

Some of them you didn’t . . .
Amos
St Paul
Chaucer
Kierkegaard
Flannery O’Connor
Wendell Berry

You listen to them all
and yourself
and you get a sheet of paper
and a pen
and . . .

BOOTS

One of your first visits
ought to be with Boots,
the secretary told me.
You’ll like her. She’s a real character.

So you’re the new pastor.
They told me you was kind of skinny.
Yes, everybody wonders that . . .
how I got my name.
My real name is Arbutus, but
my little sister couldn’t pronounce it
and called me Boots. It stuck.
I know you won’t ask, you’re too polite,
but I’m eighty-seven, still going strong,
eat a bowl of oatmeal every morning.
Never smoked. There were fifteen of us,
I was smack in the middle.
If I’d been Mama,
I woulda took a knife to bed with me.
She lived to be eighty herself though.
Daddy died at fifty-two
which proves something I guess.
I don’t go to church much any more.
Can’t see the point really.
But you stop around any time.

When the phone rang three days later,
it was her daughter.
Mom died last night, she said.
Guess she’ll be making it to church
sooner than she thought.

THE HATCHET

I hadn’t seen it for . . .
I’m guessing 45 years.
But when the auctioneer
held it up at my brother’s sale,
it was like seeing
a long lost friend.
Its main use, as I recall,
was for dispatching chickens.

You held the hen’s legs
in your left hand
and with your right
stretched its neck between
two spikes driven into a plank.
Then you cut off the head.
Sometimes, for laughs,
you could let go of the legs
and watch it flop around,
blood spattering the grass
until it lay twitching
a time or two or three and then stopped.
You did this only when
mother wasn’t there.

The auctioneer asked
a dollar to open the bidding.
I raised my hand. No one else did.
"Let’s add this and this"
he said, holding up
an almost new hammer and
an old tool of uncertain use.
The bidding stopped, I think,
at six dollars.
I’d have paid a lot more.

CONVERSATION

Last night it rained,
a good soaker, badly needed.
This morning I went out
to talk to my tomato plants.
They told me that they
appreciated my watering efforts,
they really did, but . . .
"We wouldn’t want you
to think we are ungrateful,"
the Beefmaster said,
"but that sprinkling can
of yours is . . . well . . . pathetic."
The others nodded in agreement.
A few of them tittered.
I mumbled something in reply
and tried not to act insulted.
There is, they and I both know,
no substitute for the Real Thing.

PASTOR IN THE EMPTY CHURCH

On a Monday morning early
when the first rays graze
only the tops of the back pews,
the solemn silence
beckons them back . . . the departed ones.

A few left in a huff,
shrugging off the rest of us
like a coat that came back
from the cleaners ruined.
Some drifted away wordless;
we wondered why;
now, years later, we wonder
what became of them.
Some grew up and left
to follow their dreams.
We hope they remember
the promise they made
to follow Jesus.
Some, so many, died,
and in this place
we sat and sang and cried.
Our losses multiplied.

I miss them all.
All.

AWAKENING

It was simple curiosity
Nothing more
Nine-year-old boys know
There is something creaturely
Different about girls
They just don’t know what
Which is why I stared
At Karen Rohrer
And Shirley Heisey
And Laura Mae Enterline
Especially Laura Mae Enterline
She was tall with long arms
She had eyes as blue as cornflowers
When she laughed
She opened her mouth wide
She had thin lips
She was different
Not like boys
Not even like the other girls
And she was older -- twelve
Looking at her
Made coming to school
Wonder full

WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER

There are two different kinds of laughter.
One hurts, the other heals.
One separates,
the other brings together.
You laugh at someone else,
that’s sin.
You laugh at yourself,
that’s salvation.

"Tell the peaches and ice cream
story," Mother would say.
We’d all groan but secretly
loved to hear him tell it,
about the time when he was
a boy and had a friend whose
aunt owned an ice cream store.
They sneaked into the freezer
and ate ice cream.
They ate and they ate
and when they were full
tried to keep it going by
pouring canned peaches
over what was left
until finally they gave up
and threw the whole mess
into the chicken yard.
"And that’s one time," he’d conclude,
"I got enough ice cream."

My mother would laugh
herself to tears.
Ours joined hers and his.
Salvation.

THOUGHTS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL GAME

I used to be a shortstop.
Not a great one, mind you,
but not that bad
if I say so myself.
Back then, my specialties
were moving to my left
and shagging the short flies.
Our outfielders knew it
and played deep.

Such powers do diminish.
These days I watch the games
from the third row behind
the home team dugout.
The other day one of the kids
asked if I played ball
when I was young.
I was tempted, I do admit,
to regale him with the saga
of what we did in ‘58,
but thought better of it,
and went for the easy laugh.
"Yeah," I said, "and the older
I get, the better I was."
He smiled.
(I was a pretty good
base stealer too,
if I do say so myself.)

A SHEPHERD RECEIVES A PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Matthew 18:12-14

Look, I hired you because
you told me you had what it takes
to be a good shepherd.
But, goddamn it,
you can’t just leave
the whole flock on its own
to go looking for a stray.
That’s irresponsible . . . stupid.
What if something spooked them?
What if that cougar showed up?
I know, I know,
that didn’t happen
and you found the runaway.

Listen, son, I know you meant well
but you got lucky.
A really good shepherd has to be
. . . well . . . practical,
know what makes for sound economics,
honor the bottom line.

Okay, you can go.
Just don’t let it happen again.

SPRING TRAINING

When I was a boy
spring’s blessing was a mixed one.
Yes, it was warm enough
to dig out my battered glove
from the pile of junk in the closet,
go outside and throw the tennis ball
against the wall
of the garage and pretend
I was the starting pitcher
for Connie Mack’s A’s
in their first preseason
game in Florida.

But the same sun that lured
me outside for such fantasy
likewise woke the grass.
"Lawn needs mowed"
my father would say,
which was not an observation
but an order.
The neighbors had a power mower.
We did not.
And you can believe it or not
but I swear to you
our lawn was bigger than the outfields
of the Polo Grounds,
Ebbets Field,
and Yankee Stadium.
Combined.

SOMETHING SPRINGS ETERNAL

The orange cat is
back
on warm spring days
like this one
she camps beneath
my backyard bird feeder
and looks up
longingly
with hope
or expectation
I can’t tell which

WHEN THE CALL COMES

When the call comes
you will hear yourself say
what people say at such times:
"her suffering is over now"
"he always said he wanted to go with his boots on"
"she lived a good life"
and part of you,
most of you,
believes it.

But the rest of you
wants to carry
protest signs
around God’s headquarters
and chant slogans
of indignation
and rage.

MY NEXT POEM

My next poem will be
an instant classic.
Published in Atlantic Monthly,
intemperately hailed by critics,
it will be lauded
for its honesty and wit,
its winsome insouciance.
It will be described as
"bold and bright"
maybe even as
"a proverbial gem of purest ray serene."

Not this one, of course.
The next one.

BIRD COUNT

If you’ve never gone out to the woods with
a bunch of bird watchers
you should
not so much to watch the birds
as to watch the watchers
who incidentally prefer
the term "birders"
don’t ask me why
also don’t ask me why
they get more excited
spotting a Swainson’s thrush
than a baseball fan does
when it’s two outs
bases loaded
and three and two on the batter
and as far as I know
birders are the only people
who when they use the term
"lifer" are not referring
to someone who is in jail till
he dies but to a new bird
to add to their lifetime list.

So . . .
how many are on yours?
I’m up to 68.

PROGRESS

I worked on
Dave Sangrey’s farm
for three summers
when I was in high school.
I didn’t want to.
Dad talked to Dave and arranged it.
So that was that.
It took me half an hour
to ride my bike to the farm,
the last half mile up the
steep hill of the lane -- too
steep to ride. I had to
push the bike.

They tell me the farm is gone now
bulldozed into tract houses
and the lane isn’t there,
the hill scraped away.
"You wouldn’t believe how
different it looks," they say.

I think I’ll just take their
word for it.

WHEN JACK SOAPED THE CUPS

When I was in the second grade, we had no running water in our one-room school building, so each day the teacher dispatched two students to walk to a neighboring farm. Their mission: to carry back a large can of well water for us to drink. At the back of the room sat the water cooler and 30 or more cups, each one the property of a pupil. Mine was a blue agate tin with white flecks -- a real beauty.

One fateful day, following the afternoon recess, our teacher made a discovery that filled her with consternation. Someone had taken a bar of soap and coated the rim of several cups. We kids thought it was a good practical joke. It showed some imagination and a flair for the dramatic.

Our teacher saw it in a somewhat different light. She raged and stormed at us, demanding to know the perpetrator of the nefarious deed. You would have thought the unknown culprit had committed high treason. No doubt that’s how she saw it, as a traitorous challenge to her sovereignty. She told us we would stay in our seats until the guilty one confessed.

But nobody confessed.

Dismissal time came . . . and went. There were no buses; we all walked or rode bikes to school. So we sat.

It grew late. The shadows of the trees outside stretched across our desks in patterns we had never seen before. Some of the youngest began to sniffle. They wanted to go home; they were hungry. In desperation, our teacher issued a command: "put your heads down on your desks, close your eyes, and raise your hand if you soaped the cups." It was almost like an altar call at church, only in reverse. For a long time the only sound was the old Seth Thomas clock on the wall, tick-tocking away the time.

Then at last we heard a voice. It belonged to the older sister of Jack M. Jack was a third grader brave beyond his years, a boy as drawn to trouble-making as a vulture is drawn to road-kill. "I didn’t see Jack soap the cups," Jack’s sister said, "but he’s done it at home sometimes." That was as good as a confession for the teacher. We were all released, except Jack, of course. What punishment he received I never learned. But ever since that time, I have had an illicit admiration for miscreants who hang tough in the face of tyranny.

On that day, Jack M. was my hero.

ODE TO SPINACH

O thou greenest green chlorophyl-filled
Vegetable
How wrinkly crinkly is thy leaf
How rich in vitamins and
Minerals is thine essence.
Arrange thyself invitingly
In my salad bowl.
Caress my waiting
Palate with thy garden freshness
And I
Like the sailor man
Of cartoon yore
Shall be strong to the
Finish.

EASTER HOMILY

There was a time (I was younger then)
when I held forth on the theme
that spring-time and Christ's
resurrection were coupled only
by happenstance, by co-in-CI-dence.
(There is, after all, a southern
hemisphere to reckon with).

There was, I firmly believed, a need
for sound theology to trump
Easter accretions: lilies,
bunnies, painted eggs, et al.

I do not recall that I ranted
-- not my style, really --
and I doubt if anyone paid
much attention anyway, especially
that Easter when Vince Myers
found a nest of baby rabbits
hiding in the church lawn.

SPRING (A Commentary on Genesis 3:25)

This time of year we swarm
the nursery just outside of town.
Tomato plants of course,
something for the table.
But marigolds, petunias, zinnias?
A little color in July
and they’re history come fall.

Seventeen ninety eight she says.
I hand her two tens
and carry a tray of green
absurdities to the car.

Cherubim with flaming swords
be damned.
I’m going back to that garden.

WEEDS

I was introduced to them by my father
who learned about them from his
and so on back to
Adam
who messed up big time
with forbidden fruit
and made things even worse
by trying to pass the buck
(which did not endear him
to the woman
but that’s another story).

What came of it was earth cursed:
"thorns and thistles
it shall bring forth to thee."

Which is why, if no one is looking,
I lean down and pluck the chickweed
from the pathetic strip of marigolds
along the crannied wall at
Burger King.

SORRY!

It sits on the board game shelf
in the family room,
unplayed, abandoned,
a game for kids
probably created
and surely named
by a grown-up
with a penchant for irony
or simply sarcasm.

There is, of course, another
possibility.
God knows there is enough regret
in all of us to bring us to our knees,
and every time my game piece
lands next to yours
to send you back
I relive the guilt
of past perfidies.

It’s a game for unconfessed penitents
and sadomasochists.

And kids.

MISSING

Yesterday our next-door neighbor
called and asked
if we had seen their cats,
two orange tabbies
missing since Sunday.
Funny thing is
she said
they don’t like each other
so they always go
their separate ways
and now they’ve both gone
missing.

They would take turns
camped beneath our bird feeder
patiently waiting
for a feathered feast
to drop to the ground.

I hope they turn up soon.
I -- but probably not the birds --
miss them.

ROLE MODEL

Mid morning is when
the artful thieves appear
at the bird feeder,
their surreptitious arrival
by way of the big oak,
gray radar tails aloft,
eyes always on the prize
that dangles from the lowest branch.

Meanwhile inside the house
where I stand watching,
our yellow mostly Lab
stands watching me.
She knows what I will do
and quivers, trembles, whimpers:
"Oh, I'm ready.
No dog has ever been readier.
Open that door, please, please.
I'll catch ‘em, chomp ‘em, crunch ‘em.
I will, I will."

I obey
and watch her fly out
to another failure.
She returns
astounded but unfazed,
"Next time for sure."

She is my daily inspiration.

IF MEMORY SERVES

If memory serves
they used to publish
an almanac called
Information Please
or was that a radio show
or maybe both.

See, that's the kind
of information you could get
from the book
or the radio show
if indeed either one
or both
existed.

The problem with memory
is that
sometimes
it doesn't
serve.

P.S. Thank God for Google.

ASH WEDNESDAY

It's called that, my mother said,
because whoever gets out of bed
last has to take them out.

Our stove presided over the kitchen
like Old King Cole, feeding on huge
helpings of wood and anthracite.

In winter we took turns standing
behind it to get dressed for school.
For half a year every year we huddled

around it. When we moved away
to a house with an oil furnace, emptying
ashes ended. Our town had no Catholic

church. It wasn't till I got to college
and saw smudged foreheads that
I knew my mother was wrong about it.

I learned to remember that I was dust.

SYMMETRY

"He has written more than sixty books"
it says in the bio section of the anthology
it says he's about my age
that comes to more than a book a year
if you count the years he was old enough to write
and yet I'd never heard of him
which is a symmetry of sorts

he's doubtless never heard of me

POETIC LICENSE

I'll tell you a story, a true story.
But don't take it too seriously
or at least not literally.
The same goes for the characters
-- their actions, motives, names.
Memory is at best a bumbling clown,
at worst, an assassin.
That's why storytellers
must carry a license.
Mine is W1H2A3T4I5F.

PEACE CIRCLE

PEACE CIRCLE

"Enlarging the circle of peace . . .
here is a vision . . . to pursue . . ."
(Donald F. Durnbaugh, Fruit of the Vine)


How do you make a circle bigger
any circle
but especially this one?

You can't do it selectively.

To keep a circle a circle
you must expand the arc
equally at all points
which means you've got to bring inside
ideas
and doctrines
and (especially) people
you'd very much like to exclude.

But hey
nobody
– not even Jesus --
-- especially not Jesus --
said it would be easy.