the ticking of the clock in this tired body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
buds explode in blossom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
leaves fall. down. down. down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
snow. deep, silent, waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
the body continues, the body goes on.
as prompted by One Deep Breath
I remember a show on television
called Room 222. Dad thought
Karen Valentine, the star, was cute
and so I did too figuring that
like everything else, Dad just knew.
This morning I stepped on the scale
and saw 222 under me. Dad is much,
much heavier, but this is not a way
I want to emulate him. It is the thing
about him over which I worry most.
So I took myself out for a run and walk
thinking that if I can just run far enough,
he and I will slim down to the shapes we had
when Karen Valentine taught in room 222,
when Dad was a man who would live forever
and always watch over me.
breathe in, breath out and
keep going the doctor said.
the secret of life.
the sun is gone now
and grey clouds filled with snow storms
breathe cold winter wind.
my daughter reading
a story she wrote herself.
I’m holding my breath
breathe in, breathe out and
you will come to understand.
It’s just that simple.
The talk on NPR is of
Bong Hits for Jesus and
the boy wanting attention
who painted those words
onto a sign for all to see
and not run afoul of the laws.
I wonder if Jesus is listening
to this same NPR station and
to these questions of right and wrong.
I wonder if Jesus thinks much
about this sort of thing or if
he is concerned with other things.
My hope is that if he listens,
he understands why we do
all of these things and still
has some sort of love for us.
My hope is that a god, any god,
would be understanding.
If he stopped by to listen to NPR with me
I wouldn’t ask him about bong hits or the news.
Instead I would brew coffee, offer
toasted bread with butter and brown sugar,
and listen to whatever he chose to say
about loving my neighbor and forgiveness.
If these words were a poem
they would be broken into
lines (and maybe even
stanzas) so that you
would digest them slowly
like a cat toying with
an imitation mouse that
you both hope is filled
with sweet catnip.
If these words were a poem.
I come across the word and linger
for a moment, for another, and for
another still. I know you, I say
to the word. I’ve looked you up
before, and yet it remains just beyond
the reach of my memory. It is the girl
on the other side of the cafeteria.
We are back in middle school and I
am sitting before a pizza-like thing
while my friends talk their talk.
I sneak glances at the girl who
just might be glancing at me, but
I can never quite know for sure.
Her name is Sanguine and she
is getting up to go to her next class.
The bell has rung. Our time is up.
I’ve never been good at accepting
the help of others. I learned somewhere
that it was wrong to say yes to a helping hand,
and that it was better to say thank you kindly
but do the thing I had to do by myself.
All along, I’ve known that something
was wrong with my refusals, that I was
somehow being unkind to the person
who was doing just what I would do
were the situations reversed.
Now, after an operation, I can’t do everything
for myself. The snow in the driveway for example.
March keeps presenting us with a bounty of the stuff
and it gets beyond the ability of my wife who
cares for me and for two young children.
Lucky for me, my friends, my brother, my father,
all of them have just brought their shovels or
started our snowblower and cleared the snow
without first knocking on the door or calling
on the phone to ask if they can help.
I find myself gratefully accepting their help,
my brother who checks up on me on his way to work,
my neighbor who clears the snow before I’m awake
and stops by the hospital to read my x-rays,
each showing me love I’m not sure I deserve.
I find myself wondering how to thank them,
what words to use to express to them how grateful
I am to have the snow cleared out of our driveway
and to have them understand how difficult it is for me
to ask for help or to accept offers of help.
Perhaps it’s as simply as saying thank you and
when I am back on my feet and whole again
sharing a glass of wine, a meal, a handshake.
Perhaps it’s as simple as accepting their next offer
to help me with whatever I might need.
I woke this morning cold and still tired
and looked out the window at a fine snow falling.
The sun had yet to rise.
The snow had not added up to much
as compared to the feet of it we already had,
but it was still early.
The furnace was still sleeping at its low setting
and I stood, staring out the window shivering
and considering the day so far.
The winter cold, the sun yet to rise;
the expectation of things I had yet to do
and the slow accumulation of the falling snow.
Outside the window
rain freezes as it strikes ground
always knocks us down
Something in nature–
this ice, that tornado wants
us down on the ground
slipping and sliding
falling time and time again
we keep getting up
Outside the window
frozen rain is a mirror
See, I'm still standing.
In talking with a friend over two too many beers
we discussed our wives and the ways in which our lives
had gone off the tracks we had dreamed for ourselves
as children in high school and college.
He said that his wife had given up on sexy clothing
that touch was becoming a burden to her, another job
to be done between baby feedings and laundry,
and that he wondered how things had come to this state.
The beer flowing freely through me, I said that
if I bought my wife something sexy, vinyl underwear perhaps,
she would look at it sadly, as another reminder of my
unreasonable expectations of her and unapprecitation too.
She would hold it before me like evidence at a trial
and the jury would shake their heads, look my way, then look down.
The judge would sentence me and a bailiff would put me in cuffs
and lead me to a cell where I would sit all alone.
We were both quiet for a moment, my friend and I,
drinking our beer down to the warm bottom.
Then he smiled and said, “but the bailiff is hot, right?”
I smiled “Yeah,” I said, “and when she snaps the cuffs on, oh boy.”
We laughed and ordered another, just to let more time pass us by.
