Taps

The call of a bugle floats over a draped

casket even as the smell of gunpowder lingers

from a volley of rifles fired skyward, three times,

and the crisp snap of a flag renders its own salute.

Those twenty-four notes, mournfully echoed, raise up

the hero’s spirit now to the heavens, an old soldier of a long-ago

battle, bearing up until this final call cancels out the memories

he’s carried in secret, shared alone, what he saw and couldn’t

tell, never understood and fought to forget, or one newly fallen

on a distant field of his generation’s conflict, sacrificing

life and limb in the face of the fears he packed amidst his gear,

gear that couldn’t stop the bloodshed of marksmen and hidden

weapons, dead before the explosion imprinted itself

upon his memory, dead following the pain of limbs torn away,

human flesh and organs ripped apart by another as afraid, perhaps,

as he lying here dead, the call of a bugle floating over his draped

casket, twenty-four notes, mournfully echoed, raising up his spirit. 

Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka

In the clear night sky among the stars

that I cannot name, nor the constellations

they form, not the dippers big and small or

the Great Bear or Pegasus, the dog stars

and the dove, the crow and the swan, a heavenly

host of mythological creatures born there aloft

that I cannot see, cannot find, yet … there stands

the hunter, facing his quarry or chasing

the seven sisters, placed there blind to wander

eastward to see again, the only constellation I recognize,

the light of heaven, Orion, his belt of three stars aligned,

Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, bluish and bright

and easy to see, easier to find, and when I die,

leaving behind the pull of the earth and joining

the heavens myself, look for me there, for that is

where I’ll be, where you’ll always find me, the second

star to the right, Mintaka, and straight on till morning,

carried there on a bed of pixie dust, faith and trust:

this mythology I leave for you, to carry you through.

Winter Morning

 In the quiet of a winter morning,

a fox crosses the road and leaps

into the brush, leaving behind

a trail of pawprints and a flurry

of new fallen snow in his passing,

and a yearling stretches out her neck

to the wild apples still hanging on the tree.

Confrontation

 In his loneliness and the fears we all face,

a man at some point must confront, not himself,

for that’s too easy to dismiss, to make excuses for;

for in the dark of his own life, when the only light he 

can see is a dim pinprick shining from a distant past

like a star dying out finally reaching this sphere of his life,

he finds there are no answers, no welcome solace from friends

who offer but advice, well-meaning but meaningless, nothing

he can grasp onto for comfort, stability, for his own eternity.

All that lies deep within his soul, his very being, that is what he is, 

not what he imagines or even what others might see,

might want him to be, but what he really knows is deep

within himself are the fears and the loneliness of existence,

the anguish and confusion, the hurt and pain, joy and sadness,  

the truth, yet, here, too, lie the answers to the questions

of time that he must face, must ponder, must resolve.

There he must confront that inner, spiritual self he is, face

to face, himself and the Creator of all life, this Godhead

within him, the Giver of breath, Designer of all that is,

each man, individually and alone, sacred and scared, seeking

what he fears most in the dark of his own life, himself, a dim

pinprick of Light, a distant star dying out to guide him, growing brighter.

Happy New Year

The new year brings us hope,

for something better, better weather or a return

to better times, when we were younger, perhaps

something normal even, maybe a new job or a pay raise,

winning the lottery, a new car or a long vacation

to the islands, a cruise, some place warm, good times

again, even peace in this troubled world, a sense of unity,

of working together, how we remember things used to be;

but a turn of the calendar page, tearing off but one day,

a new numbered year, changes nothing, nor do the incantations

of Auld Lang Syne sung at the stroke of 12, and there’s no magic

elixir at a drunken bash celebrating the new year or in a ball dropped,

the final seconds counted away, for when it’s over and we sober up,

we find nothing has changed but the date, and the better times didn’t return,

didn’t come back; but there is a new hope in moving forward, in facing

an uncertain new year, a new hope giving us something better to believe in.