*La Petite Mort*

With each death,
my history becomes thinner,
lost one memory at a time.

Like smoke from the chimney,
dew from the grass,
frost from the window,
memories sublimate
directly from here to gone
without a shudder,
without a moan,
without climax,
nevermore,
gone
.

*Crying*

Every bent branch
weighed the sadness of Winter-
tears froze on her cheeks.

 

*Rain Begins*

One by one we walk
past what remains of his life;
then the rain begins.

*Growing*

Most it was the child’s laughter
that I remembered;
it flew on gossamer threads.

 

*Forgetting*

Just as most of the friends we had
when we were younger
have been shed, forgotten,
it follows too that so much
that was important to us then,
lives in the gray of doubt.

One day, sooner now, we will
give it all up,
let our fingers relax
from the grip we have on our
past and present
and never again think of our future.

We practice, practice, practice,
we hope to get the forgetting right.

*The Maple’s Tomorrow*

Maple leaves protect
the emerald green future;
whirling shared treasures.

 

*On Father’s Day*

It’s all about what might have been:
about holding your hand
through the growing years.
I would have been your mountain,
your shelter from storms.

That was forty years ago:
there was walking, talking,
growing, marrying.
I missed all of these and more
on Father’s day.

*Like An Old Shirt*

Like an old, work-softened shirt
with elbows torn, buttons missing,
my life seems to be fitting me better now,
a life that, too, is old and softened.

Those proud, youthful days,
when faded enough, when rubbed smooth,
can still be comfortably worn
as the rags of wisdom.

 

*Purpose*

Once a majesty,
now hollow, soon to collapse;
destiny for all.

 

*Passing Trains*

Like watching a train pass at night,
the windows reveal lives in passing order,
someone reading, another asleep,
a couple in embrace.

Our lives pass in similar frames,
in a breathing, heart-beating kinetoscope,
not in a smooth continuum.
Life runs more like a play
scene after scene
on the way to the walkdown.

 

*One*

Two is how we start

One is how we part.

Life is the process
of pulling away,
standing apart.

We try our best,
twoness
not to be.