Orion's Season

Constellated against the dark night,
Orion steps quietly onto the winter sky
and boldly strides through the ice and snow
of his season, blinded and “hungry for the morn”;
it’s a journey we take together, he and I,
forward towards a new light, a new age.

History Lessons

Growing up white

the Negro was someone

my father knew of, and disapproved,

seldom spoke about, and the Japanese

were an old enemy he couldn’t forgive,

wouldn’t talk about, saddened still

by the burials at sea.

And history presented itself

to me without them, the Negro, the Japanese,

others I knew so little about,

yet I’ve found them now no different from me,

bipedal and seeking love, seeking peace,

no different except in color and race

and a history I never learned at school,

interconnected histories that shaped

and morphed us and our perceptions,

so hard to change, years hence,

when change we must, and understanding.

In this world today where it matters,

their history and mine and ours and the world

we have become, we must overcome ourselves –

remembering –

to begin a new history, one history

shared, leading us toward one humanity,

one people finding love, finding ourselves
and an end to the things that separate us.

The Night Before Christmas, 2016

At the lake, Christmas and snow complete the season,

but what if, as I suspect, this year the lake doesn’t freeze,

nor any snow fall to the ground, nothing there to insulate us

from the arctic wind that blows across the water,

an element we bundle warm against this season of cold,

our collars pulled up tight around our ears.

And the child in me, bundled so, wonders about Santa’s sleigh,

how this lack of snow and ice impedes his arrival.

Surely, the runners will tear at the shingles of my roof,

the damage, too, of restless reindeer hooves;

these thoughts will keep me awake as Santa makes his rounds,

and I fear again that same old threat my parents employed

to make me sleep on Christmas Eve:

“Santa won’t come if you aren’t sleeping.”

I can imagine, now, his sleigh thudding down onto my roof,

the scrape of steel pulled over asphalt,

the trampling of tiny hooves; and with no snow

to muffle the landing, this sleigh full of toys

and the prancing and pawing of each little hoof

will undoubtedly wake the dog, set off her alarm

to keep us safe and scare Santa away,

lifting off to the Christmas sky without a descent

down my chimney and magically appearing

in my living room, this right jolly old elf,

twinkling eyes and nose like a cherry.

Oddly, though, this intruder has never woken her in past years,

no interloper alerting her to stir me from my sugarplum dreams;

I’ve just accepted no warning bark, no alarm sounding,

just as I accepted the evidence of Santa’s visit

under the tree the next morning, awestruck, ribbons and bows

and presents, the stockings full, as it’s always been

after a Christmas Eve’s restful sleep, believing and unafraid.

Despite that, this year, perhaps, my fears will be realized,

no boxes and bows and ribbons, only empty stockings

left hanging on a cold fireplace. No Christmas

this year, if there is no snow, only that arctic wind blowing,

bundling up to shut it out. A Christmas without snow,

no insulation to shelter me from the adult that I have become,

believing still - wanting to - yet worried about the roof,

the shingles, a dog that doesn’t bark when the security

of my home is breached by a stranger in red

suddenly appearing down my chimney, and she

setting off no alarm, no warning; that dread alone

will keep me awake this year without snow,

a Christmas morning spent around an empty tree,

that age old threat come true:

“Santa won’t come if you aren’t sleeping.”

Early Winter Ice

Early winter ice, delicate and fragile,

skimmed the lake last night,

a thin layer that gives way at my touch,

touching it just to feel the quiet stillness

of early winter ice, delicate and fragile.

Finding America

- with much thanks to the History Channel -

My immigrant ancestry goes back

to Banbury’s cross, ornate

and celebrated in rhyme, a pilgrimage, too,

and torn down by the faithful,

the righteous, the Pure, protesting,

purifying their lives and God

to fit themselves, Bible-based,

a strict and uncompromising people

becoming bullies, intolerant in the new world

to which they came, this Promised Land

of rightful worship, religious freedom,

England’s colony, left to destroy themselves.

And die out they did, leaving behind them

who we have become, their legacy

in this much different world and time,

modern America, self-reliant and, politically,

bent to localism, Americanism at its finest,

carrying us into the 20^th century,

the new millennium, the Promised Land

of modern man, rapid change, progress,

global war and science, travel

in a shrinking world that melds us

into one people even as we fight against it,

against the loss of self in an all-inclusive community,

shared power and the commerce thereof,

one lost among the many more, changing fast.

Yet fear accompanies that loss,

accompanies that change and the ease of life created,

a change too troublesome, leaving us behind, and afraid.

But our roots grow deep, back to Banbury’s cross

and the faithful, the righteous, the Pure

who left, our immigrant roots defining us

who opposed England’s church and rule and fleeing,

finding “in the free air of the New World”

themselves and us and a way of life,

self-reliance and self-rule, finding America,

scrutinizing ourselves by the stirrings

of our grace acknowledged and our divinely sanctioned

energies of a soul put to use, benevolent

and violently destructive, to return

to who we were and what we’ve become now

in a modern world that threatens us,

threatens our identities as a free people.

First Snow

As children, we’d eagerly look to the skies

for that first real snow to fall, reading,

even then, the signs of snow in the air,

frosty mornings and the bitter chill of moist air

harboring those first flakes. And with our faces

pressed against the window, eager, we’d watch

those flakes form and fall, big flakes

sticking to everything, piling high, snowbound!

By bedtime, we knew what the morning held,

enough snow for boots and mittens and sleds

already pulled and dusted off from their summer slumber,

ready and waiting us and a winter storm, a day off from school,

and the big hill a-bustle with the neighborhood kids

racing down, scarves trailing in our wake,

and trudging back up, our mittens wet and dangling,

hats askew, snow-laden sleds dragged behind us.

But now, though we still remember frosty mornings

and the bitter chill of moist air,

we hope we’ve misread what we know we haven’t,

looking for yet another warm day in autumn.

We aren’t ready yet for the cold that bites at our core

even as we pull our hats down low and our collars up,

wondering why we stay, tired as we are of winter,

not joining the snowbirds’ southbound journey

to warmer climes, Florida and tropical breezes,

an umbrella’d drink and short sleeve shirts on a winter’s day.

Perhaps it’s because we again see that childish

face pressed against the glass, eager anticipation

looking through to a sunless sky, overcast and holding

the promise of snow and a neighborhood hill

a-bustle with our childhood selves racing down

and trudging back, snow laden, a day off to be young.

Predictions

The Farmers’ Almanac, unusually accurate,  

calls for a mild winter,

cold but above normal, snow, below normal,

except here, we know otherwise, we know the signs,

this warm November and the weeds up high,

the hornet’s nest, too, snow level,

and the woolly worms? more black than brown,

sure signs of winter’s cold and snow, nature knows;

but other signs point elsewhere,

as there was little fog in August;

the squirrels’ tails are scraggly and sparse

and few acorns to spare, the mice, too,

lean and quiet in the walls of home;

the fall colors are faded and mute

with ducks and geese hanging about,

in no rush to leave the lake, the fishing still good.

Nevertheless, what we do know for sure

is weather, predictably unpredictable,

as changing and fleeting as nature can be,

as nature is, keeping us guessing, looking

at the signs and making predictions as best we can,

readying ourselves still for the season ahead,

snow and cold, or not, in spite of signs,

readying ourselves for winter.

At Home Now (a prose poem)

At home now, here where I live at the lake, it’s raining, that cold rain of autumn leading into winter’s snow. And a rainy day at home is time spent inside, “sweater weather,” staying warm by a fire, a hot cup of coffee, or cocoa, rich and chocolaty, warming my spirits; and a good book, no Nook or Kindle on a rainy day inside, but paper, paper pages thumbed and turned, dog-eared, or chest-pressed in dozing off. A lullaby of rain falls on the roof, beats time on the windows, and the comfort of a fire-warmed room closes my eyelids and raises gentle snoring, snores bred in dozing off on a rainy day spent inside: the slow life of settling into the winter snow approaching.

On Turning Twenty - Again - Maybe

The whole idea of it makes me feel,

well, like maybe I could start over,

take the “do-over” for the bad moves I’ve made,

those bad rolls of the dice landing

on “lose a turn”, “go back two squares”,

“go to jail, directly to jail, do not pass go,”

severe consequences for the choices I made,

or perhaps just a bottle spun to plain Jane ugly,

the wrong truth or dare revealed.

I do have my regrets, I admit,

options calculated and, taken, suffering the effects,

opportunities missed and swearing to do things

differently if given another chance, I promise,

hindsight’s teaching in the “do-overs” of life.

They tell me, though, I can’t go back;

no “do-overs” for grown-ups,

take what you can get, deal with it,

and I have dealt with it, had no choice,

but if I could take the “do-over,”

I think I would - second chances,

different roads, different choices,

different making all the difference.

But then, knowing what I know now,

would I dare risk it for something unknown,

a different life I can only imagine?

Would I risk it, if I could?

Is the “do-over” always the best choice?

Winter Crept In

Winter crept in, cold and wet,

like fog across the water,

bearing on a silver platter

the promise of snow

while we slept, dreaming and warm.

Heightened Synchronicity

(An apparently meaningful coincidence in

time of two or more similar or identical

events that are causally unrelated.)

The men of science call it “senescence,”

what we all face, deterioration and our own mortality,

a storing away for the encroaching cold,

dormant in the winter months ahead.

“Chlorophylls breaking down give rise to carotenoids

and anthocyanins,” they tell us, turning green leaves

to red and yellow, orange to brown, and dropping,

floating down to coat my lawn, covering it in muted hues.

Sighing, I begin the task of raking and removing,

piling high faded leaves, bagging them to be taken away

or burned on a smoldering heap; leaning heavy on my rake,

a thin trail of acrid smoke rises, igniting memories.

It’s become an almost daily task now, combing the yard

again and again, piling and bagging, burning,

a reminder of my own impending doom, remembering.

But for me, rather, no man of science,

Autumn is a backroad trip, a wandering taken slowly,

or a wooded trail, sunlight reflected, splashed

on earth’s fall colors, heightened and vivid,

changing as summer fades too quickly to fall.

The air is cool, a refreshment in these shortened days,

winter yet too far away to be a bother, time still

to watch the seasons change and to reflect -

         Autumn’s kaleidoscopic display recycles once again

         as will Spring’s, arriving in its own time, nature’s way.

Autumn, now, expresses my own life’s journey

through these changes around me, recycled and renewed in time,

even as I pull a rake around my yard,

green leaves turned to red and yellow, orange to brown,

a phenomenon I can’t explain, nor care to –

living it is enough for me.

Laetoli

At Laetoli … hominid footprints are preserved in volcanic rock 3.6 million years old and represent some of the earliest signs of mankind in the world.

Before we learned to count,

how long did we live?

Before we named the days

and months and seasons,

how did we know that time

had passed, only that light

followed darkness, warmth

followed cold, new growth

followed death, and death followed living?

A child born became a man

and there was no measure for his life,

nothing to measure his time passing,

only change, then death,

a beginning and an ending filled,

knowing only that he had lived;

and what did he leave behind

in his ageless passing?

Just himself and his footsteps

trod upon the earth.

Laetoli Footprints

This land

we till and over which we toil,

suffering as we do the curse of Adam

by the sweat of our brows to eat,

the price of a piece of fruit denied

and taken, toiling to the ends of our lives,

this land forgives, and gives us still what we need

to sustain us, mind and spirit and body.

It asks in return little, only

what it gives to us first and nothing more -

just ourselves and preservation, the fruits of our labor,

and kindness, in kind, sustenance enough to keep it,

too, sustained for the seasons that lie ahead.

In My Back Yard

In my back yard, a tree is dying.

It’s dead, really, or nearly dead,

some little green adorning its top

amid the dry and brittle branches hanging low.

I know I should cut it down,

should have cut it down years ago,

that spring when few leaves came

for summer shade; no black buds had formed,

bursting open unseen, no shoots of leaves sprouting.

Its bark now is dull, its aspen-shine gone,

peeling, cracking, cracked already,

long black lines splintering and tearing.

The tree, too, is beginning to lean some, tipping,

off-kilter, more angled in these passing years, as if,

tired, to lay itself down, couched, a needful rest.

But it presents no hazard, tilted, no danger except to itself,

and perhaps, someday, it will fall over, not at my hands,

but in a strong wind, a summer storm, gusting;

its branches will scratch at the air and frantically

grasp at nothing, and falling, leave only a gaping hole

where once it stood, rooted, standing strong once,

but finally succumbing, giving in, falling as we all must.

7 Days in September (Haiku Collection)

          -- 1 --

Autumn’s lake reflects

sunset’s fading tones, conjoined,

earth and sky and us.

          -- 2 --

Spectral fog rises,

revealing a muted shore;

life proclaims itself.    

          -- 3 --

Smoke from chimney’s flue

ascends, curling, slips away;

so we, too, shall part.

          -- 4 --

After the rain ends,

grass glistens, light refracted;

cleansed, we rise and go.

          -- 5 --

Leaves turn red and gold,

fade to brown and yellow hue;

nature turns us all.

          -- 6 --

Migrant birds, fat now,

prepare to go, southward bent;

we persist, snow-bound.

          -- 7 --

Mournful call’s echo,

loons assembling flocks for flight;

children crying out.

What word would you speak?

to remind me

of the simplicity

of a single

     word

softly spoken.

Life's Minutia

Life’s minutia, the trivial,

little bits and pieces of our lives

lost in the recesses of memory,

often beg to be recalled

- that girl in the first grade

you fell in love with at six,

you and all the first grade boys

competing for her affection,

Carol Savage and your fifth grade teacher,

too, Miss Wilson – begging to be recalled

for no reason than to be remembered,

glimpses of a life long lived,

a meaningless jumble of memories flashing

into remembrance and retreating again

with a smile, a grin, a grimace,

a warmth left behind in their passing.

Two Poems for September

It Was September

It was September,

     the coming of Autumn’s season -

like a glass of wine poured,

rich and red and deep,

hints of cherry and chocolate,

long on my palate: September given life

in the body and balance of a Cabernet.

**********************************************

Wine tastes best alone

Wine tastes best alone,

     on a quiet evening, warmed

          by the rays of a setting sun,

               the sounds of dusk turning to night

                    resonating in a rich, red bouquet.

Dance Lessons

Yes, I, too, took dancing lessons,

a pre-school carrot-top Gene Kelly

in a Donald Duck sailor suit

shuffle-stepping my way across a stage

into an early exit, stage right.

After that first year, that only year of lessons,

I was destined never to dance again, lacking skill

and talent and the confidence I was meant to gain

in Mrs. Weatherbee’s studio high above Front Street.

It was many years hence

before I donned my dancing shoes once more,

a sophomore boy and a freshman girl,

two long lines facing one another

at the Junior High gym, chaperoned,

shuffling my feet and waving my arms,

almost rhythmically, yet inexperienced,

that clumsy dance of the high school boy,

shy and self-conscious, but for her,

for Wendy, I would have danced the night away,

Fred and Ginger gracefully swaying our way into young love;

but young love ends, as young love does,

and it did in the years to follow,

the pain of parting still lingering in memory’s dark recesses,

but for that one night we danced

and danced and nothing else mattered but us.

We Gather Together

Despite his skill with an ailing engine,

his hands hardened, cracked and scarred,

my father’s real specialty was mashed potatoes.

Those golden spuds he would whip up white and fluffy,

mixed with the right amount of milk and butter

for a perfect texture, all whirled together between the tines

of an electric mixer, until they were soft

and smooth, not a lump to be found.

Everyone raved about them, and him, too,

at church suppers, placed there amid the casseroles,

baked beans and macaroni salads,

the meatloaves and sliced ham and turkey.

Perhaps he missed his calling in the culinary arts;

or maybe this was time to himself,

a few moments to reflect on life as the mixer

twirled and swirled the dry potatoes,

boiled soft now, and steaming, into a dish to share,

a fellowship of pot luck calling us all together,

a church social or his large family

settling down around a holiday table,

a gathering gathered together by his love and mashed potatoes.

Retirement Home

It isn’t much, this house,

small enough to retire to,

just a few rooms, multi-purposed,

the boundaries breached by the moment

and by the company we’re keeping:

a rotating crowd of family,

kids and grandkids, traipsing through,

dropping their towels and leaving the lake

behind in their footprints, the path well-worn

from door to door, front to back

and back again; and friends,

a warm fire in its place,

and warmed ourselves by a glass of wine

and good conversation, old friends remembering,

remembering old friends, still full of life

and expectations for the days ahead,

even as the sun sets, turning the room

to red and our memories to gold.