Wishing You Beauty and Love in 2011
In Line
As teen-aged seniors
we cheer our Pirates
until skull and crossbones fly.
Fifty years flash by.
Now we are the grown-ups
we once laughed at
and need old yearbooks
to know who's who
and ask what’s new.
We remember those who died:
Steven who wrote our Buccaneer song
Larry who promised girls his love
Joan who teased the new kids
Sandy who wore cashmere each day
and Pete, our Pirates captain.
We queue up behind them now,
walking the plank,
but
we
don’t
know
our
place
in
line.
An Afghanistan Goodbye
Army garb can’t camouflage
the tall man’s emotion
as his girlfriend folds her body
into his, holds him tight
in the airport security line.
She whispers love, then,
Promise you’ll come back.
I promise.
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by Jeanie Greensfelder
Psychologist, poet, Women's Press writer, Hospice of SLO volunteer . . .
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Lives Illuminated
Unlike solemn cemeteries
with rows of tombstones,
in the Cambria cemetery
oaks umbrella the graves,
many defined by shells,
pebbles or pine cones.
Wind chimes and bird feeders
hang from tree branches.
Mementos—a child’s chair,
sculpture of the family spaniel,
a baseball cap, rocks and tiles
with love notes and drawings,
and a rusted toy fire engine—
bring life to the dead.
Patterns
Like a sanderling she skitters
near, then away from the surf.
In the waves, her father shouts,
Sissy . . .
you’re almost three, get in here.
Don’t make me come after you,
he hollers, doing what
was done to him,
was done to him,
was done to him.
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