Babyland
My wife and I
went to say hello
to her mother and
put flowers on her
grave
and as it was such
a vivid day shining
like life’s most
poignant dream (you
know, that feeling
you only get in late
autumn as the last
reluctant leaves
finally fall and old
man winter sends
hints of his coming
harsh arrival),
I suggested we go
for a quiet walk
through the large
silent park where
the dead reside in
undemanding patience.
We walked the long paths
of this community of souls,
stopping here and there
to read the grave markers
(and without telling my wife
I would compare their years
against my own, so often
amazed I had more, and
knowing my own youth of
unsweet carelessness, had to
wonder why).
Then we came upon a small
stonewall enclosure, with
a sign at its entrance:
BABYLAND
Within low walls of dead-cold
stone we saw the tiny grave
markers, most with but one
date beneath a name and often
an appellation (‘Little Bo’, ‘Our
Angel’, ‘My Lost Dream’)
though some had two dates,
usually only a few days apart,
sometimes a few months of life
were testified to.
As we left that saddest part of a
very sad place, I said to my wife,
‘It’s good they’re all together,
isn’t it?’
She nodded her head but turned
away so I could not see her eyes….
Emergence
Once…
I took long walks through the Universe
making giant strides across formless space
(just the way a giant would)
thrilled to think if it never ended
it would yet be too soon.
People took me for a child,
were deceived by simple disguise
for I was seer, prophet, and beggar.
One day
as I was meandering across the Milky Way
movement stopped-- I had touched the Fear
and froze fast to It
with all the desperate and mad ardor
of a melting icicle for the roof ledge.
Unseeing days string into beads of blind years--
I become the criminal courting his cell,
a burnt out Prometheus on his boring hill,
an ox of ignorance forever pulling a water wheel
(but there is no water), or to say it another way,
a sleepwalker who dreamt he was awake….
I stopped looking for escape,
turned a key to lock chains that never were
and existed for treading,
the endless treading through nothing
until a push and a long, long falling
through a tunnel filled with nightmare
and madness and tears—suddenly
to awaken like Alice did
from the dreams of ants
to the dreams of Emperors, Kings and Queens.
Now I wear life as a jewel around my neck
and enter only houses with many doors.
On Seeing An Old, Old Friend As One Plague Ebbs And Another Progresses
He came to the restaurant
with his 36-year-old daughter
who I said looked radiant
in her first-time pregnancy.
We were eating outside
that rare summer day that
smelled more of heaven
than earth and my wife
and I had got there first...
so I had prepared myself
for meeting my friend
of half a century after
almost two years and
two major operations
on his part (a triple
by-pass and prostate
cancer as he neared
the ninth decade--
I almost wondered
if he was showing off,
a Superman of old age).
Still, my heart creaked
a bit when I saw old Gus
and young Kate coming
to our table: he was smaller,
slower, less exact in stature
and speaking and I had to
strain to hear him even
though he sat close to me
but none of that mattered
for a miracle happened--
the subtle but resolute
miracle found in the
bones of liking, the bones
of friendship and the
unbreakable bones of love
as all those months since
two old men last hugged
had vanished as though
we had dreamt that lost
time and now we were
once again awake….
Ludic
English is not a language
One can ever get ahead of—
Just too darn many words!
Like ‘ludic’ for example:
Playful, in the sense of
Spontaneous, without a
Real purpose. Sooo…
How come I never came
Across it in over sixty,
Yes, sixty years reading
Untold millions of words in
My beloved mother tongue,
The language I love,
The language I married.
Even spell-check never saw it,
Or else why would it underline
Little Ludic in red, like some sort
Of criminal who needs a good
Sorting out, a spell in scary
Word prison perhaps?
But if you try, really try,
You can find sweet Ludic
Laying low, hiding quietly in the
Big fat Oxford Dictionary, lord
And regent of all word books.
He lives there with his cousins:
Ludibrious and that stuffed shirt,
Ludibry, and Ludicro (no doubt
From the Italian side of the
Family) and, of course, the far
More famous Ludicrous who
Seems to want all the spotlight
For himself…words can be
So very selfish too.
After Costco, Before Ukraine
You saw the lines weren’t too long
so you went for the gas first---
spend a little time, save a lot of
money you thought. But it took
much longer than you expected
so by the time you went into the
giant store, you were feeling like
a crab trapped in a net as you
wrestled through the weekend
horde of bargain hunters….
Finally at home, you plopped
down in your comfy chair as
the nightly news came on and
sipped the fresh brewed French
roast and ate a piece of rich
chocolate cake you bought at
Costco and felt a bit sad for
those poor people in Ukraine
as you watched war in hi-def.
Still, the thought uppermost in
your mind, as your eyes scanned
so many dead bodies lying quiet
in the streets like stones thrown
randomly, was just how damn
good the coffee was and how
much you had saved going to
the big box store….
