T0 2012
You burst from the starting gate
and though I pull on the reins,
I hang on for the ride,
longing for 1940's snail-pace years
when I wanted to be older, faster, sooner.
While you race through days, weeks, months,
rushing to your own demise, do you ever
think of jumping fence,
lying in green pasture,
letting me slip from the saddle
to the spacious terrain of silence
where I can breathe
reflections about my life,
feel the texture of grass,
gaze into your tender eyes?
Waiting for the Light to Change
In my rear-view mirror I see Sisyphus
at the end of his day. Head resting in his hand,
elbow on the wheel, he looks asleep.
Features frayed, he rubs his eyes.
He pushed his world uphill today,
and must do it again tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow.
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Elegy to a Sand Pile, 1945
I didn't know how drab life had been
until you arrived, a beach, dumped in our backyard.
You're taller than me, smooth and sticky.
My sister arrives, takes a hose, wets you down,
and shows me how to finger and fist a tunnel.
Running around you, out of my sight,
she burrows so her tunnel meets my tunnel.
After tugging my hand, she lets go
and we peek at each other. The sun comes out,
and I love her, love you, love feeling alive.
Ginny says Pop is building a driveway,
and someday we may even get a car.
She goes inside. I keep you company
and wonder if you miss the ocean.
I fill flowerpots, making towers.
On Saturday my brother wheelbarrows sand
and Pop stirs you into the cement, and when
you're grey and smooth, pours you.
On all fours, using a long piece of wood,
he sweeps arcs before you set, solid.
I like the new you. Our family sits out at night,
watching for falling stars. Soon, you become
my roller-skating rink, and I want the constant
roar to remind you of the ocean.
Recently I saw you, buckled, brown with age,
still holding sweeping arcs of hope.
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