Blissful sun-warmth

Blends with distant Arctic breezes

At the cliff edge.

 

In another season, quiet

Reigns here where pastures slide

Downward to the sea.

 

But today, all is fussy noise

As cormorants and penguins speak

Walking over each other to claim a nest

 

All along the cliff edge as far as eye can see

Bird heads bob and bodies wriggle

Each intent on the security of an egg nest.

 

They pay no attention to the humans here

Except to watch that we stay distant

While the sky wraps all of us in its blue.

My memory is full of all those whose lives

Somewhere, sometime touched upon mine leaving behind

A shining residue of love, friendship and hope.

Without these freely given values, my life would

Surely not have been so filled to the brim

With life and all those things that make it meaningful.

Yes, even those who criticized me, were even cruel,

Contributed to a fuller understanding of life’s

Eternal struggle to shape the character of a man.

All the friends and many relations I have known

Enriched me, so I am loath to ask for more.

It seems impossible for me to say in words

How much my life was filled with joy

Because of you and you, my friends and family.

 

 

Poom! Green, red, blue and white

Stars glitter briefly in the night

Poom!  A whistle-scream through the darkness,

Brilliance blossoms, fade down the sky.

Poom!  Eyes glowing.

Children’s giggled delight,

A happy sigh.

Poom!  Once a year we celebrate

With sparklers, firecrackers in the summer air.

 

Deep slumber memory

Stirs and wakes dreams of years long past—

 

Poom!  White fire traces down the blackness of night

Screams and whimpers echo in the hills.

Poom!  Flares burst above the trees

Blood red burns the light,

Blue and red lie fallen on the battleground.

Then dawn.  A summer sky.

Heat waves rise too early from the cobbled streets,

A distant nearing march sounds beyond the town.

Poom!  A palm slams on a desk in Philadelphia

A pen scratches the first name upon the parchment there.

 

Poom!  Two centuries later

The yellowing parchment reminds a nation:

With flickers in the night sky,

Sparks of remembered battlefire–

Poom! Two centuries later,

The United States of America July 4, 1976.

Music filled my father’s house

From violin, guitar and mandolin

Instruments of second-hand parts

Repaired with tender care

By my father’s and granddad’s hands

 

Melodies flowed from the radio

And precious record discs

To fill the big front room

 

Where the polished floor

Rang in the counterpoint

Of tap and soft shoe

As my father danced

 

The rhythms of poetry

Rolled around the rooms

As my father recited from memory

The words of his favorites

 

The lilt of laughter

And the cello chords of voices

Blended into music, too

 

Yes, sweet music filled

My father’s house

Until the notes clashed

Broken and brash

Filling our nights with sorrow

And sometimes fear

When my father stumbled

In his dance and lost his song

 

The stranger he became

I learned to hate

When alcohol released

His futile anger at his fate

Which denied him

His father’s love

The music sweet and bitter

Stilled at last

When my father vanished

Without a word, or good-bye

 

Once after years of silence,

I saw a man so like my father

And he saw me

But we did not speak

My child-anger stole my voice

As the man passed, waited,

Then walked away

 

Music once filled my father’s house,

Treasure given and received,

And a bittersweet refrain still echoes

Of memory and might have been

And that which never was

Gray seas break against the land

And granite cliffs crumble into sand

The beach leads into endless space

As the sun paints the sky into the night

The tranquility of the silence

Smooths the wrinkles in my mind