The Trip Up
Above the gentle
slope,
Another slope
appeared,
And cresting
that,
Upon the path,
It chanced just as I feared
A further hill
lay waiting
For our eager
feet to tread,
And “Ever
upward,”
Came the word.
“We’ll soon be
there,” she said.
I cut a sturdy
ash stick
To help me mount
the trail.
“Don’t fall
behind,”
She did remind
Me, “there’s yet
more to scale.”
The minutes flared to hours;
The sun loomed overhead.
“But sure, by
now,
We must
somehow---
Arrive?” I
weakly said.
“They aren’t the
same,” she
breathed,
“These rocks
along the way.
I’m not so sure
This is the tour
I took the other
day.”
“We’re lost. Is
that the gist?”
I pressed for
frank disclosure.
She nodded,
glum,
“Yes, that’s the
sum.”
She dropped her
false composure.
We never topped
the mountain,
Far peaks to
scrutinize.
Our aching feet
Came home to
greet
The evening’s
parched black flies.
_____________________________
Published
2004 in The Longfellow Society Journal
Emerson Hospital or Her Full Knee Replacement
My sister's drugged in a wind-up bed –– her leg
recrafted at the knee with cobalt-crested bone.
I leave some lilies, start the homeward trek.
Bare walls, glazed eyes confirm that I'm alone.
The front door auto-slides. Above the walk
a dripping roof provides a taut percussion,
as if a rain cloud from the gods had thought
to lodge above the clinic door, its mission
to drain roof snow and generate a pool
that shivers my reflection at the curbside.
My nose is filled with March's molecules
that peddle scents of yew and yellow loosestrife.
Sun and the dissipating snow begin
the season's birth. Her knee must spring again.
_________________________________
published 2011 online in Poetry Porch
Etherspeak, 2010
My message-making ways cannot compete
With modern wireless satellite telephones.
So many kinds of talk are obsolete.
To type a memo has become effete.
The older generation still is prone
To message-making ways that can't compete
With smartphone calls that any minute greet
The viewer. Ink and stamps will be unknown.
So many kinds of talk are obsolete.
My grandchild palms her iphone just to meet
Her friends and thumbs the screen in texting mode.
Their message-making habits must compete
To keep up with the latest buzz or tweet.
Passé the landline––with its dial tone.
So many kinds of talk are obsolete.
I still rely on email notes to seek
Replies from distant friends when I'm alone.
Although my writing ways cannot compete,
Their stylish talk will soon be obsolete.
____________________________________________
published 2006 by Iambs & Trochees
Patrimony
Each night like a priest preparing the altar for Mass,
my father embellished his dresser from his pockets.
At his elbow I sniffed the smoke of his coat.
His sleeve followed the arc of a censor, down
and up. His craftsman's fingers fixed each thing
to a predetermined grid, while I at six,
acolyte, mapped each gesture in my head.
His fountain pen to the right, his purse upper left,
the coins in a bowl. In the center, rosary,
lucky shell, and silver cigarette case,
extracting first, a memo, wafer-thin,
to read next day before the New York train.
Ritual ended, blessed, dismissed, I'd leave
and offer my child-sure creed to the darkening house.
________________________________________________
published 2007 in Thema
Atalanta
When buses bring the runners to the track,
friends and parents line the fence to greet
them, take their sweats and bottles -- stash till needed --
and obliquely check for energy (or lack).
Her group is called to jockey, toes aligned,
her body angled forward like a trap
wound, ready, sprung at the gun and snapped
to a measured lope while parents cheer the line.
A handful, bunched together, lead the race,
the others strewn behind: staunch figures flung
along the oval of the park -- dispersed.
With three laps done, one runner flouts the pace.
Along the fence, she outstrips one by one
till past the painted mark she dashes first.
________________________________________
published 2011 online in Poetry Porch
________________________________________
published 2011 online in Poetry Porch
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