We went to Vigil Mass last night
To avoid the storm.
I sat with you in the back.
(It’s easier that way.)
You sat on the kneeler
put your Teddy beside
and looked up
Such Perfection.
Peerless and innocent, ready
To be loved without question,
And I was caught off guard
By the sheer beauty of it.
You sitting on the kneeler,
Smiling up at me, your Teddy right beside.
I saw two young lovers on the beach
And longed for that untried love again.
We were like that, weren’t we?
Ruddy in our youth,
Lost to all others and enthralled
In our youth.
A lone bloom
leaned against
the vase’s rim
as fresh and captivating
as baby’s first grasp.
to capture the moment
I take a picture of you-
those unrivaled rolls and cheeks.
(ah! that baby skin! that smile!)
Now, when you’re older I’m assured
to remember you, so perfectly encapsulated!
Yet I know you’ll be changed, grown
unfolded into maturity and real.
And I’ll look at the glossed relic
not with recollection
only disbelief.
Northern Mockingbird Photo Credit
With a peripheral
dart you caught my eye
and this mornings’ catch
I see –
in your ebony beak.
a sparrow sharpens
his beak in two quick strokes then
darts into the birch.
And what am I ?
you asked me
I did not know what to say
Then, naked against
White sheets.
But as I wash
and hang them
on the line you
fastened taut,
I know.
You are the keystone
And I a dependent-
a spring point
to your stance,
Unmoving and vital-
My crown.
The flowers in my garden have
all come to seed and like
the years before this (and the years to come)
I hope for newer blossoms
As I hold them in my hands.
I found one of my old poems. I would have never written it this way now but kind of like it anyways.
A Mother’s Jewelry
The pendant Hangs
regal and stately.
a book rests open
sorts of tales take shape
and pregnant words become
As they are spoken.
Still she reads, pages attend.
Her rings clink and clank.
gold shimmers stone flashes
as picture in the eye.
heart ranked, mind outflanked,
Still she reads, pages bend.
Surely such rings were forged
to be knelt before, kissed by
priests, advisers councilors of old
her veins they enfold.
Still she reads, pages descend.
Your hands hold fast against the glassed
and banded lobsters. Riveted
by these still silent cramped captives,
their stroking antennas, you stare
unmoved.
