Park

She was middle aged,
Weathered face, dirt ingrained,
Walking like she was beaten down,
I could hear the group of kids laugh,
She came closer, looking distressed,
Chapped lips parted to ask the question,
"Can you pray for my son?"
I say yes, seeking to offer comfort.
Not telling her, I am  not the praying kind.
She volunteers, in a puzzled voice,
"Those kids are telling me my son turns into a dragon,
And flies to the hills, and he breathes out stars."
I hurt for this lady,
Wishing the teens had a bit of mercy.
The lady walks slowly away,
Asking each and every person she sees,
"Have you seen my son today?
Can you pray for him?"

Seasonal Musing

Autumn's soft kiss is plying
The rounded, flushed cheek of summer,
With tiny kisses
Layered across Summer's face
Like a trail of freckles across
A young girls nose.
Autumn blows gently
In whispered secrets
Quietly told in a tidy cupped ear.
Summer smiles and laughs,
Running across a field,
Hair streaming behind
In a glorious cascade of many colors.
At this moment, Summer is in the lead,
But it is a foregone conclusion
That Autumn will win the footrace.

Stench

All it takes is a moment of distraction,
The cat ran by, I thought the dog chased it.
She never stops when I tell her,
Or all this could have been avoided.
But, no, it was bound to happen this way.
And there I stood, not sure what went on.
Until I saw the black and white,
Cartoony striped animal march across the yard.
It was in no hurry, tail held high and fluffed
To an enormous size.
And then the stench hit, and
Mercifully burnt my nose out right away.
Not so for the poor dog,
Trying so hard to scrape it off her face.
Poor dog.
Poor me.

Motes

Stars shining in the sky,
Flickers off the dark surface,
Swept out in a spiral,
As I am pulled from the earth,
Uprooted, blown out there,
Joining the star song,
Not floating passively,
Burning brightly,
Another mote in the universe.

Honestly

I believe you should be able to ask questions.
When you need to know something that went on,
Ask, and I will do my best to answer.
My sense of fairness forces me to tell you,
This is my opinion, based on what I knew at the time.
I have figured out some stuff since then also,
And have no problem telling you what and how.
I suppose you might wonder why I always try
To answer thoughtfully and honestly,
It is because I really never knew what to ask,
And when I did, I would be diverted.
I love you for calling to let me know
That my open door policy ticked someone off.
Thanks for that, it means so much.
Even more, I love that it didn't scare me,
Or bother me. I knew it would come sometime.

Kitten

Whisper kitten,
Good company,
Not surprised,
Purring happily,
Taking an impromptu bath
In the middle of the night.
Upset?
Not at all,
Awake, interested,
Ready to pounce,
On my rapidly moving fingers,
Losing interest,
Accepting caresses,
Purring loudly.
And catching sleep
That eludes me tonight.

Music

I have laid quietly in my bed,
Listening to the scratchy rhythm of breathing,
All to no avail.
I need to be here, pounding keys,
Like ivories, ejecting whatever thoughts
Can't be silenced enough to sleep.
They pound out a beat in my head,
Never really revealing themselves,
Except as syncopated taps.
Each tap is mindlessly waking me,
Sending me on a journey,
Filled with frustration,
Awake as ever,
I resort to coming out,
Sitting down,
Trying to compose the music of my soul.

Crazy Cat Lady

I have always secretly thought,
Had I not opted to have the traditional
Life of marriage and children,
That I would have been a great candidate
For the local Crazy Cat Lady.
I tell people this all the time.
If I hadn't gotten married and had kids,
I would have been that spinster lady,
Living alone, except for my dozen or so cats.
I think I would have been content,
And quite possibly annoying to the neighbors,
Perhaps scary to the schoolchildren passing by,
I can see by the way they lean back,
This whole conversation makes them uncomfortable,
So I drop the subject, subsiding into current life.
After all, there is still time, later on,
To be the crazy cat lady.

Spy

Hot dusty road, heat shimmer in the distance,
One car emerges out of the haze,
Speeding along, buzzing, the sound indicating a smaller car.
Pretending to be a spy, I dive in the ditch,
Thinking no one can see me, I carefully watch
This red car approach, listening to the sound.
To my relief, it speeds on by my hiding place.
I watch for a bit to make sure it is gone,
Before leaping up to dance and celebrate.
This was happiness in those days,
Spying, sneaking, pretending,
Caught up in my own world,
Only allowing it to touch the wider world
How and when I wanted it.

Magic

More than half a moon sliced the sky,
Orange, probably harboring smoke.
The air was silky summer air,
Leftovers from a scorcher of a day.
I don't think midnight is the witching hour,
It is the time you stop to notice.
Notice all the cats laying soaking up
Remnants of the long summer day.
And more than magical to notice
A mantis on the front door,
Another on the steps.
To pause and listen to the night,
And taste the magic.

Life Blood

I could make this about anything,
Deeply felt emotions,
Torn from my heart,
Pulsing in time to the beat.
I could do that if I wanted,
But will not scribe these
To this page tonight.
Tonight I choose to keep them,
Within myself,
Rather than letting them pour out,
Like the cat-caught robins blood,
That filled the palm of my hand.

Self Inflicted

Shock waves, disbelief, anger, yes, even anger,
The story went, as we learned,
He was involved with this girl,
I guess she must have really been something,
And it all went wrong.
I don't think he talked to a soul about it,
All of this was pieced together later.
You were always the littler brother,
Running around with us older kids,
Back when two or three years mattered.
In the bigger picture, it didn't,
To kids, though, it is a vast difference.
By the time it all went down, I was in college,
You should have finished high school.
This was back before Columbine,
So it was no wonder the pistol got in,
Maybe today, it would have been noticed.
Not then though, over twenty years ago.
As I understand it, the girl broke up,
The boy, (that would be you) was depressed,
And took his brothers gun.
Very publicly, and dramatically,
He comitted suicide on that school day.
Sure, we clean it up, and official reports
Must say he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound,
But I doubt that erases the image all of us know,
There could not have been anything clean about it.