I am closing these eyes
Breathing deeply…for a moment
I am wiping the sweat from
My brow and furrowed forehead
I am casting one more
Quarter in the wishing well
And praying at the same time
I am double tying my shoes
Extra tight and
checking my fly again
I am casting sideways glances
Into faces I’ve never known
Could they be friend or my neighbor?
I am mostly convinced
Mostly…still riding the fence
Good thing it’s not picket
I am often times wrong
But under my breath I
Will admit it to the confession
Booth of one
I am almost older than
I feel but again
Don’t count on that confession
Either…
I am more than cover art
On the front page
Waist even neck deep
In pages yet unread
I am thankful
Over and over
Again.

I’m sitting in this parking lot,
The hyperactive kid is throwing
Balls of snow and ice at
The van while he dances to
A tune only he can hear
And then lays down in
The field of white and communes
With the snow angels.
Sometimes we need to be like that
simplified
Unfettered
Unrestrained
All engaged and who cares
What others think in the process…
Sometimes we worry too much
Stress over things that we can’t control and it weighs on our souls
It ages us, wages war with us
And we are weary
Closing our eyes and pulling
Out our hair in frustration…
Sometimes,
Maybe today,
Maybe tomorrow
We get out there
And commune with the
Snow angels too…just because.

Wisps of white
Snow or cotton
Are appearing even
Now on my chin
I refuse to acknowledge
This passing of time
Ignorance, as they say, is bliss
But perhaps in my case
Could be blinds to
This old work horse…
“I’m still as young
As I used to be”
I keep saying to myself
Perhaps some genie
Will overhear these ramblings
Of this crazy man
Denying his own ignorance
Perhaps not.

They say it all happens
For a reason…
Excuse me for finding
The cynical humor
In this thought…
Thoughts cascade,
Persuade, invade
And encompass us
Into decisions…
I find it difficult to believe
Our parts have nothing to do
With consequences
Broken fences where
The horses were set free
To rummage and pillage
The farmer’s crops
Things happen for a reason
And with the turning of
The seasons, we make choices
Rippling out like small waves
In a pond affecting
It all, infecting
Rejecting the rational
Replacing it with the fickle
Layered on to explain
Poor choice away
Like some great divorce
From the truth…
It happens, accepting
But not understanding
Coming to terms
With a price too high
Its okay to find the anger
Within…its okay to question
Last time I checked
He has big shoulders
For that.

Slap of the screen door, flat knock
Of my grandmother’s boxy black shoes on the wooden stoop,
The hush and sweep
Of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned stride out to the edge and then, toed in with furious twist and heave,
A bridge that leaps from her hot red hands and hangs there shining for fifty years over the mystified chickens, over the swaying nettles, the ragweed, the clay slope down to the creek, over the redwing blackbirds in the tops of the willows, a glorious rainbow with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.