ADESTE FIDELES

Come

Come to Bethlehem

Join the company
    Mary is here
    And Joseph
    A donkey
    Cattle lowing
    Shepherds   
    A lamb or two
    Wise men three
    And, if you choose, you

Come to Christmas

Venite adoramus

IN THE SHOPPING MALL TEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

She was beautiful
    black, lustrous hair,
    skin that shimmered,
    eyes a man could
    fall into and drown
and she chose me (me!)
stepped in front of me
and gave me a smile
that fastened my feet to the floor.

You celebrate the holidays
don't you? she purred.
    Uh . . . yeah . . . sure.
    (I have such a way with words)
She touched my arm.
Good, she said. I'd like
to show you something
over here and nodded
her entire magnificent body
at a kiosk filled with jars
and bottles of something or other.

I took a last look at her.
I don't think so, I said
and escaped, my wallet
and self-respect intact.

I'm still regretting it.

SONGS IN THE NIGHT

On cold winter Sunday nights
the week ended or perhaps began
with my parents singing.
Mother played the piano as they sang.
Self-taught, she cheated a bit
on the alto and tenor lines but
not the bass which Dad sang to
accompany her soprano. Old songs
mostly: Study War No More and
Old Kentucky Home but mostly the hymns
we sang at church. Sent to bed,
my sister and I were ushered to sleep
with What a Friend We Have in Jesus
and We'll Understand It All By and By.
Worries about school the next day
and whether the Russians would drop
the Bomb surrendered to the two part
harmony coming from downstairs where
two people who loved each other
and us sang their songs into the night.

ARROWHEAD

Late summer. I took off my shoes
and waded ankle-deep into the water.
The Indians, I’d been told, called it
"Chiques." We just called it "the creek."
I stepped on something smooth, glanced
down and saw what looked like an arrowhead.
I picked it up and became at once

      a warrior, face painted, alert
      to every sound, moving with swift     
      stealthy step through the trees that
      surround the white settlement. I can
      hear the thud of hammers, the rasp
      of saws. Peering through the branches
      of a hemlock, I see men lifting logs
      to build their fort. Quickly I reach
      for the quiver on my back, fit the arrow
      onto my bow. I pull the string back
      to my ear and . . .

I hear my mother calling me for supper.

THE DOCENT

The docent at the Shepherdstown Museum
has little time for pleasantries.

She walks with crutches but needs
no aids for her impartings of history.

She feeds them to us like a mother robin
bringing precious provender to her nestlings.

She makes us see the water wheels
whose heavy stones gristed grain,
helps us hearken to the cannon thunder
from the carnage at Antietam in 1862.

She believes we have come to learn
and she will see to it, God help her,
that we do.

Attempts at levity are not, I repeat,
are not appreciated.

ON THE TRAIN TO ATLANTIC CITY

AUGUST 1945

The war, my mother told me,
was over. I was five, almost six,
and girls were singing
mona lisa mona lisa men have
named you and laughing
and promising each other that
they would grab themselves
any good-looking soldier who
walked by them when they got
to the beach. I was looking
forward to building a sand
castle and wondering what it
would be like to jump into the waves
and if going to school would
be as much fun as my mother
had promised it would be.

UNVEILING

It was always my father who said
the grace before we ate. It never occurred
to me to ask why. It was the way
things were. What puzzled me,
though I never thought to ask,
was intenda juice. We never
drank it, I'd never seen it, but it
appeared in every mealtime prayer.

 I believed it was one of those
mysterious necessary words
we heard at church like salvation
and sanctify and atonement.

Years passed. A visiting preacher
came for a meal and, according
to protocol, Dad asked him
to say the blessing. He pronounced
his words precisely. He prayed:
And bless this food to its
intended use. At last I understood,
though, truth be told,
I preferred the mystery.

WHAT IF . . .

Put yourself some place in a story.
You can be the center of attention:
Captain Ahab, Cleopatra, Gatsby,
Samson, Hamlet, Goldilocks.
You choose.

However, you’ll have more freedom
and more fun if you select a minor character,
someone who stands at a discreet distance
yet close enought to take it all in,
the proverbial fly on the wall.
You’ll be able to move around
without attracting inconvenient curiosity.

Besides, it will be much safer.
You’ll have a chance for a happy ending.

ALL SAINTS

There are some few whose
goodness is almost visible
and palpable. They shine
in the dark. They exude.
They are rare as rubies.
They are as dangerous
as they are harmless.
They don't know it
which is essential.
I've beheld some,
known some.
So have you.
Name them.

ON A MONTANA MOUNTAIN

 Tilted meadow generously sprinkled with
 yellow fawn lilies each a miniature miracle
 mid-June morning crisp clean cool
 I am seated next to a hip high stack of firewood
 and visited by natives of the place
 chipmunks who stare and twitch atop the wood
 and stay to entertain for half an hour
 so long as I stay still

PHOTOGRAPH

There is a photograph taken
when I was four or so.
I’m sitting on my father’s shoulders.
He is standing in the huge garden
where he loved to go
on summer Saturday afternoons.

On his head is his standard issue
feedcap. Both of us are grinning
at the photographer, my mother.
Too young to think of winning
or losing or what it means to worry,
I am sitting on my father’s shoulders,

held firmly and securely by
by his strong arms. I know
I can not, will not, fall.
My trust is absolute.
But I am only four or so,
sitting on my father’s shoulders.

AVIAN ARCHITECT

The robin’s nest in the hawthorn tree
has a new feature: a long strip
of zebra grass that extends a foot
beyond the nest on both sides.

It’s hard not to believe the builder
has added an artistic flourish,
a creative touch he is sure
his mate will appreciate.

I hope she does.

UNCLE FRANK PAYS A VISIT

Before you leave, you've got to see
Beamesderfer's Hardware. It's our little town's
closest claim to fame. It sits on the corner
of Elm and Main. The ancient sign
out front modeslty announces "Hardware."

 Derfy, that's what everybody calls him, is
in his 80's and knows the name and size
of every screw and bolt that's ever been
manufactured. They're scattered all over
the store but he knows exactly where. 
Walk in the place and you'll swear 
you're back in 1947.

Once, just for fun, I told him I needed
a left-handed monkey wrench.
Without cracking a smile, he walked
to the back of the store and brought
back a rusty wrench. "I've been
saving this," he said, "for the next
jackass who asked for one.
Eleven dollars and seventy-five cents."
The look on his face told me I'd better pay.
I did.

THEODICY

The mother robin that sits

on her nest day and night
in the holly tree beneath
our window has gotten used
to our standing and watching.

We suppose she supposes

we are adversities to be borne
like the relentless April wind and rains
she endures with stubborn equanimity.

What she cannot know is that

we silently wish her well,
admire her steadfast sitting
like hapless gods who witness
from on high and can not intervene
as fire and floods and fevers
devastate the innocent.

GARDENER'S CONFESSION

In April the small wood behind
our house teems with Virginia bluebells.
Five years ago I planted three.
Multiplication followed. I claim
no credit for the the resulting
beauty and rightly so.

However, if you were to see it
and offer your congratulation
for the loveliness spread out
in front of you, I would probably nod
and smile and let you think
I was landscape artist, gardening genius
and Mother Nature all rolled into one.

JOB INTERVIEW

" And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat."
-- Luke 15:16

He was a mess when he showed up,
looked like he hadn't washed
for weeks. He smelled bad.
He said he'd do anything for a place
to sleep and something to eat.
Funny thing though, I could tell
he'd been raised proper, something
about the way he looked at me,
met my eye, held himself up straight.
I didn't ask. None of my business really.
I'd seen young fellows like him before,
fallen on hard times. Can happen
to anyone. I remember when I was
his age and I . . . but that's another
story, isn't it? Point is, I felt
kind of sorry for him. "Ain't got
much need for help right now,"
I told him. I pointed to the shed.
"But I could use someone to muck
out the stable and feed the pigs.
You interested?"

IVAN

I didn’t like him. He was,

I thought, a braggart, always

going on about his big dairy

herd and how much money he’d

“dished out” to buy Royal Consort,

the prize bull he was so proud of.

When I got home from school,

he’d often be at the feed mill

where my dad worked and I’d

hear him bragging. I didn’t

like the way he ordered Dad around

as if he was the boss instead

of Mr. Cassel. I wished Dad would

tell him to shut his big fat mouth

and once, after he left, said so.

I remember how Dad gave a little

smile and told me that when

I grew up I’d understand.

“Rich people,” he said, “can say

anything they want to.” I said

I thought that wasn’t fair.

“Yes,” he said, “but anyhow there

is no law that says the rest of us

are required to pay attention.”

JOHN AND MARTHA

When we moved to the new neighborhood,
Mrs. Paige told my mother about them,
how every Saturday at four, they'd walk

to the edge of the woods where
their son was buried. He'd been killed,
she said, when his motorcycle ran off

the road. Their farm lay just behind
our house and we could see them climb
the little hill across the meadow,

hand in hand. As far was we could tell,
they never said a word, just walked,
and when they got there, bowed their heads.

I imagined that they prayed and cried,
but I was young and did not know
what grief was or what it does.

HOW WILL THEY LEARN

The kids came up from Carolina
on the bus. My job . . . to take them
through the houses built to simulate
a Third World village. We walked our
way to Mozambique and Tibet.

I'd forgot how almost-still-children
seventh graders are, still waking
to the world. More than half a century
separated us. When asked to name
what it was they most enjoyed about
where they lived, many said
"video games." They tried to understand
what life without a cell phone would be
like, and, I rather think, could not.

Some tried harder than others.
Hearing their questions, watching
their faces, gave me hope.

THE TWISTED TREE

The twisted tree that stood on the edge
of what was called Mason's Wood
-- who Mason was I never knew --
kept trying to tell me something.

Stunted yet strangely stately,
it would not let me pass,
demanded my observation every time,
compelled my contemplation.

Why, alone among its companions,
had its shape been bent,
its branches reaching out
at such odd angles?

Had its deformity been there
at its beginning? Or did
some calamity befall it,
whipped it, tore it, wrenched it?

Not all oaks grow tall and true:
was that its message? Some must
and can overcome batterings.

I am like you, it seemed to say.
You've had your share of shakings.
So have I.

LOVE LETTER

Dear Penny,

I'm writing this note to express how deeply I appreciate your patience, your devotion, your unconditional acceptance of me.

Lord knows I don't deserve it. How many times I have neglected you, taken you for granted, selfishly put my needs above yours. I have, much too often, spoken harshly, even shouted at you in anger. Preoccupied with my work or amusement, I have often kept your waiting. I confess that at times I have literally abandoned you for long stretches of time.

I am truly sorry for my thoughtlessness. I know I can never atone for my wrongdoing. Through it all, wonder of wonders, you still adore me. I see it in your eyes.

But how about this: let's go for a long walk, just the two of us.

I'll get the leash.

HARVEY

The barber shop in town occupied
the basement of The Union House,
a room that sat beneath its bar and grill.
From time to time he'd stumble
down the stairs lubricated well
and singing an off color song he must
have picked up in the war. He was
a cheerful drunk and seemed to welcome
all the friendly insults the barber tossed
his way. Some customers joined in.

I watched and listened, rapt.

What I remember most is the time
he stopped and stared at me
and broke into a grin, then fished
into his pocket and flipped me
a half dollar. I caught it, stared at it,
and did not know what to do.
"Say thank you, Mr. Cole"
my father said. I did and looked
the giver in the face. "I ushed to be boy
onect," he said. "That was long ago."
I saw his bloodshot eyes were wet.
He used a dirty sleeve to wipe his face
then turned around to leave.
"It's hot as hell in here," he said.
"I think I hear them callin' me upstairs."

COLLEGE:FRESHMAN YEAR

I'd learned enough of children's cruelty
to know that words can hurt, had done some
of it myself, not much but some. I believed
all that was kid stuff, something one
outgrows, like crying, which is why
I could not, at first, believe what I was
hearing, an upperclassman taunting
another student, telling him he was
a sorry excuse for a human being,
a worthless piece of crap. "It's true,
isn't it, Bernie?" he hissed. "It's all
true, and I'll tell you why -- because
you're a Jew, a goddamn stinking Jew."
What I didn't understand was why
Bernie sat there and took it, why he
didn't, at least, get up and walk away.
I didn't understand then, but now what
I understand even less, and remember
to my great shame, is that I just
sat there myself, mute.

BRIGHTENED CORNER

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light"
-- Isaiah 9:2

They blew into the visitors' room like it was party time,
stomping snow from their boots, laughing loud.
Four of them -- a mother and her three kids,
shouting friendly insults at each other, tearing off
their coats, jostling past us, racing to the seats
at the far end of the room.

The guards gathered around the check-in desk
eyed them with a mix of curiosity and disapproval.
Such gaiety seemed out of place in this somber space.
It was if the children didn't understand that fun
is forbidden in a prison.

The man I'd come to see and I exchanged a smile.

Any light is welcome to those who dwell in darkness.

SOLOMON CREEDY

I don't much like the cold
he said when he showed up
that day wearing feed sacks
over his head. He lived
down by the tracks in a hut
he's somehow thrown together:
sheets of corrugated tin,
scraps of wood from God
knows where. In warm weather
it served well enough, we
guessed, but a winter storm
like this one . . .

He stood there shivering.
Come in our teacher said
and pointed him toward
the big stove that kept
our one room schoolhouse
toasty warm. He stomped snow
from his boots, held his hands
out to the heat, gave three or
four deep sighs, then left without
a word. Our teacher explained
that some men who came back
from the war were not the same
as when they left. He was such
a gentle boy, she said, and he
was really good at spelling. It's
such a shame. After that we
weren't afraid of him as much,
but still a little bit.

TOUGHNESS LESSON

I admired Danny Rambler. Of all
the boys in our school (grades
one through eight -- I was in second)
he was the toughest.
Not the biggest or the strongest,
but rough-edged, solid, the first
to take a dare. You could imagine
him jumping off a roof and bouncing
right up. He had an easy laugh,
the kind that made the teacher
smile even when he spelled
"friend" wrong for the third time.
Not even Henry Cassel picked
on him. I never saw him in a fight;
nobody would have been that stupid.
That's why that afternoon at recess
when the older boys were throwing
rocks into a big puddle on the playground
and one of them by accident hit Danny
on the head and he came in the door
holding his hands over the blood
that dripped to the floor and he was
crying just a little bit, I saw
that there are limits to how
far toughness will take you.
   

IT'S NOT ROAD RAGE

It's not road rage. Call it
intense irritation. It happens
when I look in the rear view
mirror and see a tail-gater
on my tail, so close I can
read intense impatience written
on the driver's face. I check
my speed. I see I'm moving
fast enough, right at the posted
limit or even some above.

Here is my temptation -- to slow
down, slow down even more.
I'll teach him (or her)
a lesson is my thought.
And sometimes -- I confess it --
I do exactly that. But other times
I fantasize: I hit the brakes
real hard, The guy behind me
rams my rear, is clearly
in the wrong, will have to pay
a fine, bear the cost of all repairs,
and pay my whiplash bills
for therapy, months of it.

I know, I know. This is crazy talk.
It isn't, as I said, road rage.
But it's getting pretty close.
   

AN INVITATION (updated)*

The Auto Repair Shop

I'm going into town to get the oil
changed on my car; the shop is near
the strip mall, just a mile or so from here.
I shan't be gone long -- you come too.

They'll find, I'm sure some other things
they'll say that must be done,
like brakes and tires and batteries and on and on and on.
I shan't be gone long --

On second thought, I probably will --
but why don't you come anyway.

*A parody of Robert Frost's "The Pasture"

LEARNING TO SPIT

Our house stood at the top
of Temperance Hill where

the road to Lititz intersected
with Fruitville Pike. Every day,

at precisely seventeen minutes
after five, a grey car would

arrive at the stop sign. The driver
would open his door, lean out

and spit on the macadam. My
mother, her face twisted

in disgust, explained that
the filthy habit of chewing

tobacco required frequent
expectoration. When she

wasn't looking, I'd sneak into
the kitchen, grab a handful

of raisins and tuck them
in my cheek. I practiced

by pretending to drive
a car and opening a pretend

door at a pretend stop sign.
Spitting, I was sure, was part

of what it meant to be a man.
My mother just didn't understand.

WRITING POETRY

No, you will not win a Pulitzer.
Yes, by comparison with Yeats
(or fill in the _________ with your
favorite), what you create
is small potato stuff.

Do it anyway. Make it as good
as you can. No weekend
golfer thinks he is Tiger Woods.

So drive it down the fairway.
It may land in the rough.
Don't bother keeping score.
It's your potato stuff.

TUBING ON THE CONOCOGEAGUE

Just beyond the bridge
slip into the current
and be carried, bobbing
gently, into the quiet.

Stripped of time's obligations,
you enter a new world,
a place where you have no
authority. You can observe only,
and you will be observed.

A frog's plop announces
you are in frog land now.
A floating congregation
of mallards up ahead
is speaking in tongues.

You round a bend,
the water widens,
and you slow
drift into a dream
of sun and silence.

You pass the remnants
of a farm long gone
and wonder how and why.

High overhead a heron
alights on an oak, waits
till you approach, then,
with what seems to you
contempt, takes its
lazy leave and puts
you far behind.

And so the day passes.
You have accomplished nothing.

Congratulations.
   

VISITING THE ALZHEIMER'S UNIT

Will they come,
the refrigerator days?
Are they on the way,
when wild wind will whistle
through the eaves of my memory,
stripping the last vestiges
of what was once real?

O, my mother said, I don't
want to get like Papa
who, towards the end,
got out the telephone
book and said I know
that verse is here
in this chapter in Matthew.

But she did.

What was hardest to watch
was the weeping. At least
there were no rages.

A mind is a terrible
thing to waste.

A mind is a terrible
thing to lose.

PET RABBIT

He showed up three months ago
and still hasn't left. Brown
with a white band that circles
his shoulders. He -- or she --
(how would we know?) spends
his days in our front yard,
usually under a shrub, sometimes
hopping into the woods, other
times lying flat on the grass.

He has helped himself to my
beans, but apparently is not
a carrot connoisseur. He is
the anti-Bug Bunny, with
no wise-guy tendencies and
not a mean bone in his cotton-tailed
body. How and why he got here
remains -- as they say -- a mystery.
Theories abound: best guess is
he saw his cage door open and,
like Huck, lit out for the territory.

Anyway, there he is. He'll let
you get about three feet close
before he hops a way.

I call him Harvey.

PENMANSHIP

To say it is a lost art is not
exactly news. It was on it way
out sixty years ago when our
teacher had us do the loops
and curls within triple track
lines. The days of fountain
pen were long past, though
our desks had inkwell
holes that now gaped to no
purpose. "It's all in the wrist,"
she told and retold us. My
scribble scrabbles proved her
wrong. I had a wrist and used it.
Didn't matter. I was never
going to be a penman. I aspired
to use a typewriter.
Years later I did. Sixty-five
words a minute.
   

VOLUNTEER DAY AT GREENCASTLE ELEMENTARY

They file into the room
where two of us have come
to tell them about plants.

I had forgotten how fresh
as roses third graders are,
their faces bright with

eagerness for anything different,
their hands ready to shoot up
to the simplest of questions:

"How many of you like ice cream?"
"What do plants need to grow?"
except one who slouches

in the back row, gaze turned
window ward, brow troubled.
We pass around ferns, pine cones,

lichen-covered limbs, to grasping
hands till they reach him.
He shakes his head, refuses

to take or touch.
The session ends. He shuffles out.
I catch the only thing

he's said, making sure we hear:
"This was boring."
O child, how your heart must hurt.

MYRA AND DAVE

They would have been in her late forties
then or early fifties the summers
I worked on their farm.
It wasn't my idea;
Dad made the arrangements.
You start on Monday
he said and that was that.
Then he said:
they had a son who fell
off the tractor his dad was driving.
Killed. I think
you ought to know that.

They were sitting on the porch
when I got there.
He rose and shook my hand.
Good morning he said
this is my wife.
Her smile was warm.
We're glad you're here
she said. I believed her.

Once when he and I were hoeing corn
he said: my wife
can outwork any man I've ever
known. I saw that he was
proud of her for that.
The two of us worked side by side,
fixing fence, topping tobacco stalks.
We talked some, mostly sports.
He followed the Phillies.

Sometimes I worked just with her,
in her garden mostly --
beans, sweet corn, strawberries.
She told me about their daughters
and the grandchildren.
A time or two she said the name
of their boy . . . Let's see, yes,
we bought the car
two years before Sammy died . . .
I wanted to ask how it happened,
what field, and where in the field,
if he died right away or lingered,
where his grave was,
how old he was,
if he was fun-loving or serious,
if he liked baseball,
what kind of books he read.
She would have told me, gladly,
if I had asked,
all that and more, I'm sure.

I did not ask.
I did not know enough about grief
and therefore feared it.
But I knew she carried their loss
more easily than he did,
that she never blamed him,
and he loved her for that.
I knew it was what saved him.

ANNUNCIATION

Up north here April
is swell time when the bergenia
begins to burgeon, the redbud
blossoms into pink.

This is seed time season.
No fool my father whose
deadline for peas in his garden
was the month's first day.

Spring is sing time.
To true and would-be believers,
the Virgin breaks into Magnificat,
precursor to an angel chorus.

Come and walk a time with me
in the woods where bloodroot
flowers announce that earth

is still a quickened womb.

LOVE IN WARD THREE

I saw her first through
a haze of throbbing pain and
mind-mooshing pain-killers.
Her face, angel lovely, bent over
mine, asked if I wanted ice
on my lips. Her voice was
a purr. Later, in brighter
light, I saw all of her.
The sight fueled my fantasies
for years afterwards.

Then, though, it was love.
I didn't need Ernest
Hemingway to tell me
that young men in pain
will fall helplessly
hopelessly in love
with young nurses.

When I asked her name
she said Cassandra
but my friends call me
Sandy. May I call you
that? I asked. O yes
she said and smiled
me back to sleep.

MARCH GLADNESS

I rake away last October's
oak leaves from the west
garden bed and find, as I hoped
I would, green fingers poking
through the soil like newly
wakened children pulling themselves
up from slumber into the morning
of spring's promise. I stand
there smiling, a dopy,
delighted, daffodil daddy.

OBJECTION!

The proverbial straw that broke
the proverbial camel's back
of my bite-your-lip forbearance
was deposited last night.
It was a word spoken in a TV commercial.
The speaker, a young woman
-- 22 or 23, I'd guess --
had just popped into her mouth
a "brand new, all-natural,
delightfully refreshing"
(according to the words flashed
on the screen in neon yellow letters)
stick of chewing gum.
She turned her smiling face
to us, the viewers, and spoke
the word: AWESOME.

Okay, okay, I confess. I lost it,
shouted at the screen
my one word -- NOOOO!

Chewing gum flavor may be sweet
or minty, perhaps pleasingly
tasty, but it simply
can not be awesome.

Words have power.
Let's show some respect.


P.S. Okay, I'll admit, I am a former English teacher, but still . . .

AUGUST SENTRIES

I see them now,
the solidago, tall and bright
and yellow, standing
at attention along country
roads, end-of-summer soldiers.

Ninety years ago, my mother
was thrilled by their appearing.
I know because she told me.
"I loved to see the goldenrod,"
she said. "It meant that
school would soon begin."

I could not understand.
I hated school, dreaded
summer's end, questioned
Mother's sanity. Not out loud,
of course. I kept my dread
inside. I went out back
and walked along the creek.
I found a rank of goldenrod.
I took a stick and
hacked them to the ground.

MARIA AND FORREST

When I got there I saw
she was devastated. She had
come home and found him lying
unconscious in the bath tub,
half immersed in blood and
water. "I'm Catholic," she said.
"I believe it is a mortal sin,
even if he doesn't. Please go see
him. He's in St. Mark's. Tell him
he must not try again."

I went. I had misgivings.
What right had I to tell
a man whose very breath
rasped his chest what he should
or shouldn't do? But her
tears had pulled from me
the promise. I went.

The room was dim,
the late afternoon sun trying
feebly to enter. He looked
at me once, then turned his
gaze away. His face was pasty pale.

"I know why you've come,"
he said. "She sent you."
"Yes," I said. A long
silence then. I broke it.
"It's your life," I told him.
"But will you promise me,
for her sake, what I know
I have no right to ask?"
He gave the merest nod.

I thanked him.
I left.

GUNS

"The only thing that stops a bad guy
with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
-- Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president

Let's divide the human race
Let's call some good guys
Let's call the rest bad guys
Let's give them all guns
Let's line them up for a shootout
It's that simple

Isn't it?

MEETING NAN

Last night I met Nan.
I remembered her from when I was
eight and she would have been --
let's say -- fifteen. She was
our neighbor's niece, had come
to visit from the big city. She did
not speak to me and surely
never gave me a thought then
or later. She had long legs
and arms. She was beautiful.

Sixty years later when she walked
into my dream, I recognized her
at once. We exchanged a few words.
I could tell she found me witty,
even charming. She leaned towards
me when I spoke. I made her smile.
We talked some more. She laughed
and touched my wrist with her right
hand. "Kiss me, Nan," I said.
"How did you know my name?" she said.

MISUNDERSTANDING

Chloe, our beagle, bit me
when I was ten. I had placed
her food in her dish, then
reached out to pet her.
She growled. I saw what was
coming, turned to get away.
She slashed my hand, deep.

My father, dressing the wound,
did not blame the dog, did
not realize how stunned
I was that my good intentions
had been misunderstood.

It was a lesson that has served
me well on many occasions.

WORD CHOICE

Away with "Golden Ager"
and "Senior Citizen."
I prefer to describe
myself as "seasoned."
The word carries with it not merely
an allusion to the many winters
and summers one has weathered
but also a whiff of spice, a tangy
taste that defies blandness.
"Seasoned" implies wisdom, a view
of life tested by time and circumstance.
Hearing it spoken, one hears an echo
of "reasoned," a word that suggests
calm appraisal of any situation.
There's even a hint of craftiness.
Someone seasoned is the very opposite
of gullible, won't fall for the clever sales
pitch, can spot a phony in a flash,
is increasingly unwilling to abide fools.

Don't call me "up in years,"
"over the hill," "put out to pasture."

Call me seasoned.

JESUS STOPS BY FOR A VISIT

Oh, it's . . . it's You.
Well . . . come in, come in. Yes.
I wasn't expecting . . .
That is . . . I thought you were . . . dead.
But . . . But . . . No! Not dead, not really.
Risen! Yes. Of course . . .
Resurrected. But still . . .

Yes, please sit down. Sit. Sit.
Here's the best chair in the place.
Not much of a place, I know.
Anyhow. Coffee? Tea? A glass of water?
Something stronger?
Hey, I guess you could turn
the water into whatever . . .
Sorry. Just a little joke. Heh. Heh.
You've probably heard it a thousand . . .
Yes, I suppose it would get old, wouldn't it?

Sorry if I seem a little nervous.
I really had no idea you made house . . .
Of course I'm happy you've come.
Glad. Pleased. Honored.
It's just that I never imagined . . .
And I must admit I'm curious.
I mean I'm sure you have a reason . . .
No? Just a chance to say hello?
See how things are going?
Well, things are . . . fine.
Really. I'm doing well.
Most of the time. ‘course we all
have our ups and downs, don't we?
But no complaints. A few aches
and pains. Not getting any younger
you know. Well, I'm not anyway.

What? You've got to be going?
So soon? But you just got . . .
And . . . And I have questions, lots of . . .
Yes. Yes. I understand.
Maybe . . . Maybe next time?

MEMORIAL REQUEST

Let us talk of those no longer with us.
Let us honor their lives with our words.
Let us speak mostly of the good in them.
Let us not, however, pretend they were not flawed.

Let us re call them, summon them again from
the times they spent touching our lives
with theirs, helping us to cry or laugh, teaching
us, often unaware that they were teachers.

Let us re member them, rejoin them
to our company, with stories of what they
said and did, with special attention given
to how they said it, how they did it.

Let us re instate them, claim for them
their rightful place in our past, but also
in our present. We are what they helped
shape us into. They live on in us.

SIT-IN

Aunt Martha was not pleased.

I knew because I overheard her
tell my mother what happened when
everybody on the school trip to Hershey
Park got on the miniature train
and the conductor came to collect
the nickel from all the passengers.
She said I said I didn't have any money
-- had I spent it on potato chips? --
but refused to get off even when
the conductor insisted and to avoid
making a scene she had to pay
my fare. She was, she said,
terribly embarrassed by my behavior.

Six decades later I'm impressed by
that five-year-old rebel. It's way
too late to apologize to Aunt Martha,
and, to tell the truth, I'm not sure
I'd want to, even if I could.

JANUARY 1 -- FOR THE HEARTBROKEN

It's time to toss out
the old calendar.

Do you do what I once did . . .
flip backwards through the pages
for clues to yesterday's news:

recall appointments missed
and kept, remember
that weekend back in April

when the two of you
saw the sunrise on the lake
she called unforgettable?

And do you wish you knew
the steps to take
to make life less regrettable?

Most of the months were
full of her.

Did you circle the day
she went away?