I'm 60
years old. I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh 270 pounds. I used to be taller,
thinner and younger but was transformed along the way by life and an excessive
love of pecan pie. I published a couple of poems in the late 60's-early
70's, then quit writing (except for business writing) for nearly 30 years,
as career and family took up most of my time and creative energies. I began
writing again when I retired a couple of years ago.
Since then my poems have been published in a number of on-line literary
journals, including Tryst, The Muse Apprentice, Alchemy, The ShallowEnd,
AvantGarde Times, The Poet's Canvas, Dynamic Patterns, Neiderngasse, Eclectica,
The Melic Review, The Green Tricycle, Nectarzine, Experimentia, Planet Magazine,
The Horsethief's Review, Maelstrom, Beatnik and others.
poem on a napkin
Starbucks brown
and flimsy,
with little space
for things profound,
instead,
this small memorial
to the moment
our eyes met
and the future
was foretold
photo album
I'd give a year of my life
to have that day again
not my last year,
my drooling-in-the-oatmeal year, not that
mind-blank-body-broke-spirit-gone last year
I'll give that year away for free
no, I'm talking about next year,
while I still have prospects,
next year,
when there might still be time
for a little more rock & roll
under a summer moon,
a little more time for snuggling
on the back porch, watching a winter storm
blow through leafless trees, listening
to the clickity clatter of dry branches,
time for a weekend at the beach,
time to read, time to write,
time for all those things I know
will some day slip away
that's the year I would give up
to live that day again
on your 50th wedding anniversary*
consider the constants of our lives,
the sun bright above
and the moon's pale glove on soft summer nights
consider the sun, shining every day,
feeding life through the gloomiest skies,
bringing warmth in the frozen hours of winter
and the moon, empress of the night,
making her nightly orbit even as we in our slumbers dream,
stirring the deepest oceans, pushing salty tides
over sand-smooth beaches and rugged rocky coasts
across all the spinning expanses of our moon-struck world
and love, the third constant, consider that one too,
for without it we live under a darkened sun,
shorn, like the moon, of our reflecting glory
consider love, when two, like wandering stars,
collide in a nova of creation, becoming first, one,
than many more again, a new galaxy
of dreams with its own potential for re-creation
love,
the balm of every pain and fear
love,
illuminator in every darkest hour
love,
bringer of peace to every stormy night,
love,
richly sown in your youth
reaped as your life's sustenance
through all the passing years
consider always love, true and unremitting,
like the sun that warms you and the moon
that embraces you in the hours of deepest sleep
may you forever be enfolded in its tender grasp
*Dedicated to Dr. Rollin and Mrs. Barbara Sininger. For two together
thus,
50 years is as an afternoon in the park.