The Taste of Morning

 he Tastes of Morning

A Pewee and a Bunting

just over there, in the high

branches of the neighbor’s

tree - just out of sight.

A sampling of words

going this way and that

down sentences that

may or may not come to be.

A chime in the wind

tinkling and gonging out

notes that lull me into more

birdsong just beyond view.

So many broken threads

line the walls of morning.

Each a possibility of Blake’s

winding ball of Jerusalem.

Perhaps Frost’s road not

taken was one of the many

tastes of morning that assail

us - each a possibility.

I’ll take these all on my

walk, and look for something

on which to dwell, before the

sun rises and I need to look busy.

First Taste

 I want to get 

back to origins. 

To the first taste 

of color on papyrus. 

Back to when berries 

hit the cave walls 

in Lascaux, waiting to

hear the squish of fruit,

the tussle and snort of 

the bison before its 

rusty pigments set. 

How long did they 

soak the walnut husks 

to make the eternal 

ink that covered so 

many scrolls and 

vellum sheaves? 

What sound did the 

words create as 

they were scrolled out 

fresh and new on 

the virgin page? That 

is the un-struck sound 

I want to know and feel. 

True poetry;

true art.

Outset

 From the outset

of the day, there

may have been

another day I would

have wanted if I 

knew how this day

would turn out.

Just sayin’.

Finding a Way

 The small yellow

guidebook for the

Horseshoe Trail looks

the same, a little worse

for the wear from

sharing and all

of the years.  I

turn the page and

forty years fall away.

It is Monday, 1986.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We found pounds and

pounds of Day-Lily

bulbs in the Spring.  And

would fry them up

in butter when we got

home.  Took thousands

and thousands of black

and white photos on 

our little Tomato

Camera by Konika.

Walked over footbridges,

through streams, and on

horse trails following

the yellow hash marks on

trees and poles.  Three years

of Mondays, 8 miles a week,

out and back - sometimes 

hitching back to our car

if we walked too far.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

We wrote hundreds of

first lines of poems

and pages, to the rhythm

of the seasons and the

boot-fall on dirt.

“Bury my heart in

a Sassafras grave.”  

“Hear my foot-fall

on the damp wooden 

bridge.”  Talked over

the details of newlywed

drama, argued, and laughed,

and stopped often to write.

Backpacks and journals,

hotdogs and brownies, and

oceans of water in our

old tin canteens.  Toting

along labs Rebecca

and Isaac - if not on 

the lead, somewhere

after the deer.

Finding a way through

the way that is life.

Finding a way less 

encumbered with strife.

I think that  I’ve learned

to sometimes lead, and I 

also learned to sometimes 

follow.  To sometimes walk

side by side.  To sometimes

wait for the other - behind.  

The measure of life’s wisdom, 

comes from attention to what 

is needed right now, not what 

you did the last time around.

That moving on through often 

gets you ahead.  And that rain 

and snow are a part of it all.

Horseshit, and muddy paths

hold sway o’er my heart and

linger so lovely in my mind.

Thunderous and Wee

 

Lingering Forever

 Her fingers worked the needles and yarn

like she was kneading bread dough blind.

Looking up to gauge my response to what

she had said, she’d knit and knit without pause.

It was not long before I realized that my

mother used to do the same.  And somehow

as I sat with this hospice patient, listening

to her tell her tales, one by one I saw the 

women of my life enter the room.  Mom,

Mom-mom, Mimi, Nanna, Mertz, Karen and

Ruth, Aunt Pat, Aunt Norma, Aunt Betty, Dawn 

and Pat joined her, knee to knee, needles tapping out 

their cloth.  It was then I first knew - deep down -

I carry those women with me - EVERYWHERE.

Those first and powerful women of my life, 

they have knitted themselves an endless

blanket of my days even as they were 

nowhere in view, just always under the

chatter of knitting, behind the threading of

a needle, or beyond the cutting of their

cloth.  Somehow connecting me to

who I would become.  Really, no words.

Just their ghostly appearance doing what 

they did, all the while as I listened to this

woman slowly dying.  And the others.

All the others.  Slowly leaving through the years.

They are all in there, in me, lingering forever.

our stories

 our stories are what 

feed our souls - deep

and on the inside.

in our story we 

eat the broken one;

we throw him up on

the table first, divide

his flesh from his blood

and we eat him - after of

course we mumble a few

words.  we grind him up

and swallow him and then 

he is ours.  and then we, we

become the broken ones.

this is to remind us that

we are broken ones and

not worthy to judge 

anyone else - we are

unworthy and we are

as I said before and up

above: broken ones.

the end