Youth's Life Crisis

                                           for Aaron

Your body betrays you.
You sweat, smell, and get pimples. One day,
you wake up, and you're someone else.

My grandson will go to middle school this fall.
He calls it that place for hairy brutes.

At his fifth grade graduation, ten and
eleven-year-olds fidget and look around.

Girls wear pretty sundresses.
Some boys wear suits and some wear shorts.
My grandson chose shorts and a tuxedo t-shirt.

They describe grade school—
a roller coaster ride,
a hike up a mountain,
an earthquake with aftershocks,
a beehive with honey and stings,
chapters in the novel of your life,
a coral reef with sardines and sharks,
boot-camp for the middle school army.

Later, at the picnic, parents celebrate
this passage while classmates celebrate
summer: water bottles become squirt guns
and the chase is on. For today,
childhood reigns.

                             (Published by Grand Magazine)

by Jeanie Greensfelder Psychologist, poet, Hospice of SLO volunteer Author: Biting The Apple Available through Amazon.com

Carry Me

I'm five, asleep in the back seat, or I was,
until the car pulled into our driveway.
Mother wants to wake me,

and have me walk inside. Eyes closed,
I do not move, and count on my father.
He gathers my body and carries me—

I know to notice this carry,
not knowing it will have to carry me
the rest of my life.

Meditation

Eyes shut, my finger traces
grooves in a table-top labyrinth.
Body and mind disappear,
leaving all I need to know
in the touch spot and the path.