A river
pulled back to its source,
pebble strewn rill
overgrown with reeds,
cannot fathom
the brown churning depths
it’s retreated from.
It plashes
in this nursery of oceans
where each small stone
holds a story.
Niagara
A boy’s kite sails
across the river,
its string becomes cord,
swells to cable
which sprouts a bridge.
A locomotive shuttles,
iron upon iron,
over the roaring tumult
soon to tumble as rain
for three seconds.
The train moves on.
The flood becomes ocean.
The boy grows old.
Cry for him
if you’ve time.
Another Reason I’m Not A Concert Pianist
You sweated for years,
a serf on a manor,
tilled fields with oxen
and a wooden plow.
Marriage and children,
summer and snow,
tithe and obeisance,
shovel and dirt.
The plague swept through
and you survived.
It came again,
you didn’t.
Carried from you to me,
one single thread:
the gene that makes my index fingers
bend away from each other
at the knuckle.
===
A web page with interesting facts about: genetics and family tree
Measuring the Circumference
Yellow blooms
then billowing smoke.
A glass splinter creases
my left forefinger.
This bloodless scratch
incurred far beyond
the percussive blasts
rides the sharp edge
between effect
and coincidence.
Caregiver
I’ve glued together hours
from the frayed edges of days,
a flash of pinking east
a smudge of faded west:
interspersed, random bits of time
with kinescopic flicker.
God blew a breath
and cleaned the dust
off this looping snippet
of life.
Then I realized
those hazy specks
were people.
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,500 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
Machine
The day falls
and breaks open,
shows its inner workings
of cogs and wheels.
Tiny craftsmen swarm out
from the mainspring,
scurry to resurrect the loss
but I walk on, doubtful
of their success.
Jeweled mechanical toys
inlaid in cloissone enamel
lay broken by the millions,
over countless hillsides,
sprinkled with the skeletons
of little men
who tried to make them work
beyond their time.
In childhood the magical motions
are unexpected joys.
By old age they are rote
machines of assembly line
manufacture.
Set the last one down
and be rid of the damn
scampering fool.
