12 Sunday Dec 2021
Posted in Poetry
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear of Death, Foal, Hope, Horses, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry
My father is eighty,
has cancer,
lives two hours away,
and I worry—
could I get there
soon enough to say
I love him,
should his last moments
come quick, unexpected—
like a foal born in the night
while I’m sleeping,
even though I’d been there
to catch him all day.
28 Tuesday Jul 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Aging, Breast Cancer, Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Dirge Without Music, Edna St Vincent Millay, Gardens, Poem, Poems, Poetry, prostate cancer, Shadow of Death
(Dirge Without Music, Edna St. Vincent Millay)
The Fall came in shadows,
The poetry,
Cancers of breast and prostate,
The tumor in the child’s lung,
By December it emerged
Another way, unpredicted,
Because who can predict death?
Fierce and final,
I would say it ravished,
But that would imply he may have lived.
And he didn’t.
What’s the word for being all gone,
The home you built, inhabited by strangers,
Growing cucumbers and tomatoes
In the garden you put away?
Did you think you’d see April,
The planting of the seeds?
Or July, with its harvest?
New hands take up old work,
And so, it goes on without us.
After a short time, even memory,
Struggles to keep us alive.
29 Friday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
From our first breath,
Straight from the womb,
We average twenty five thousand
Nine hundred fifteen days,
Of welcoming the sun,
Falling asleep under the moon.
You can buy a car for that much,
But it won’t have leather,
Or a back-up camera,
Or, probably GPS.
His doctor said, two and half years,
The average in late stage prostate cancer,
But I like to think,
Nine hundred twelve and a half days.
Nine hundred twelve times
To welcome the sun,
Nine hundred twelve times
To fall asleep under the moon
And a half day left over,
To dream about both.
26 Tuesday Aug 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
I remember what it was like
To be unstricken,
To think my life would go on,
To think I was owed a spot here,
And that spot was permanent.
Once your body lets the thing
Grow, you understand something else,
That mercy comes in miracles:
The Canada Geese overhead are miracle,
The smell of your son’s hair is miracle,
The arms of your friend wrapped ’round you,
Saying, it will be okay, is miracle.
Love is a miracle.
That we can be loved is a miracle.
I asked only that I’d see my son graduate,
And I did. That is a miracle.
I am a stricken one.
I was stricken long ago.
I’m part of the great finite,
And I’m part of the great forever,
So in need of mercy,
So thankful for miracles.
25 Monday Aug 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Think of yourself motherless
In this false, frail world.
This world where you don’t touch blood,
Or suffering, or death, but hope
Someone will be there to touch yours.
She pulled my hand to her bare breast,
Cupped it underneath,
Rested the heft of it,
In my palm:
Do you feel it, she asked.
I feel it, I said.
I feel it.
Bits of Poetry 