Home,
Home again
Not my home now
My mother-in-law’s home
Now
Now
Not home
The home of my youth
My old house and school
in a drive by
Through the Alley
of Memory Lane
Somehow lame
A bit run down
40 years passed
This ain’t my town
“Happiness is Lubbock Texas
in the Rearview Mirror”
Happy to leave this home
That made me happily
Weird
To take a life
Infanticide, it’s OK
They’re just mice
I found the bundle with a start
Mama tried to save one
Off with a dart
The other three fell to the floor
Sharp knife to spines open
Their last door
Mom easily drawn into a trap
She meets the same fate
But that’s not a wrap
One more to find
To finish the deed
One more cut, last one to bleed
It’s so hard to count
It’s so hard to count on
It’s so hard to count on people
How much trust can we
How much trust can we put
How much trust can we put in another
How many let downs have you
How many let downs have you strung
How many let downs have you strung together
It’s so hard to count
It’s so hard to count on
It’s so hard to count on others
These words don’t suffice
For the depths of their meaning
So deep, an azure pool
Sky blue at the top
Navy in the middle
And a pitch blackness
Where no light can penetrate
Save the thought of you!
For true depth is darkness
And true love is the
Light that shines on
In your mind when
All else is dark.
That beacon that carries
You through darker moments,
Lonely nights and terrible possibilities
For even as we talk about
The “depth” of something
We rarely break down
What “deep” represents.
Like deep in the ground where
Well-springs hold dark waters
That once coaxed to the surface
Brings thirst-quenching Life!
Is the depth of my soul
A dark place as well?
It can’t be — For You are
The Light at the center of my Spirit
¡My Love!
The table’s set, the food is made
Here we sit and give this grace
We’ve gathered here to share our wits
A funny quip, a story with grit
I remember the grand house on the Cimmaron
I’d play in the woods when told to “run along”
In the hills and trees and on sandy shores
The red, red dirt where the water pours
Those days of youth when I was carefree
Not burdened by this loss that’s coming for me
Of my gracious aunt whose lovely smile
Was warm as the hearth after a cold country mile
Never the center piece like her beloved Yellow Rose
But always the backbone for all of those
Who have come and gone doing God’s work
Filling trucks full of clothes and food for the Church
No she was never the center of attention
Just a helping hand, a cup of coffee from the kitchen
An open door to her welcoming home
A meal, a blanket, a place to rest weary bones
I never once heard her ask for her turn
Always on task to help those who yearn
To find God’s grace in an unforgiving land
To help without question her fellow man
Her radiant smile, her questions about you
So gracious, so kind, so ready to do
Anything she could to make things run smooth
All she would do to comfort and soothe
Her presence is missed as we gather today
One more moment or kiss or kind word to say
From this lady of grace who asked for no return
On her investment in you, your life, your concern
We should all be so bold to live life like this
To give all that we have of ourselves in kindness
Like our fair lady who we lay here to rest
Who spent her whole life giving only her best.
If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?
If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…
What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?
I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.
Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…
Sleeping in the Landscapes of O’Keffe
After moonlit walks with sand in my feet
I awoke to the sounds of scissortails
Rolled out on the red dirt of the trail
And breathed in fire and cotton clouds
Not long for my senses to be aroused
As a red ant frenzy organizes on the mound
The silts and dirts shift as winds sound
And humbles my spirit in the presence of art.
It is easier to reflect on the past
Than to absorb the present
So lost in a moment that the moment is lost
Grab that brush of fleeting thoughts
And paint the landscape before it’s tossed.
As the pages
Of another year
Are written
And turned
We pour
Over them
The diligent
Accountant
Looking for
The errors
That must be corrected
On our records
So often we
Build walls —
Shrines to our
Failures
Rather than
Raising temples
To myriad
Accomplishments
The roads
That become maps
Of where we’ve been
Never the map we plan
For the road
Is paved by the pebbles
Of small decisions —
Unclear Impressionism
Until you step back
From the time spent
Nose down
Trodding onward
And look from
A distance
The many miles
You have travelled.
It is easy
for the road
To be washed out
by the river of misdirection
But for now the sun
Still rises in the East
And sets in the West
And one foot must precede the other
We carry on
Hand in Hand
Together to see
What this next day will bring.
You tied me to a tree, sisterly, despising me.
I was little, not remembering this cruelty.
Only family mythology that we carry.
I left my scissors in the couch. I remember
Them sticking out of your leg where now a cave
Remains for the reminder.
You took me to the record store. We bought
“My Sharona” and you colored o’er Sharona’s
Transparent tank top with ball point pen. What a sin.
We were headed to the movies and you were driving
The VW Bug. Not sure how it unfolded but the front got molded
By the back of a pick-up truck and that poor VW got folded up.
What once was round in the front was squared on its forward trunk.
And then there was the time I fake farted in your face
Blocking the TV until you were enraged which evolved
Into a full blown cat-fight brawl with Dad. A wrestling match
Paired with my first hearing of the words “Chauvinist Pig!”
Yes, we had an antagonistic relationship. You took my room
And threw away my shit. I was far from the perfect brother.
Usually the first to tattle to mother.
But with age comes appreciation and we evolved to become musicians.
You were always an ardent fan and we shared the love of playing in a band.
And now we, both, are just these old farts.
Ready for this next chapter to start.
Terrifying
Is the first sensation that
creeps up my spine as the
long trail of stars creeps
across the just blackened night
Sky of dusk out in the desert
The stream of lights arched from
Horizon to Horizon – a steady
pace of objects un-evenly spaced
giving it the illusion of a
Naturally occurring phenomenon
Without internet out in the dark
Night sky of our camping spot
We could neither deny nor
Confirm the spectacle we had witnessed
By referring to the digital brain
We could only speculate the
Nature of these UFOs with
Our New Mexican mythology
Some 160 miles north of
Roswell in the darkness at Villanueva