At her interment

I know.
I know that love is old
and that the young
can slough it off as merely
hormonal--cosmetic preparation
for maturity, but they do it
at some peril as a life retreats
behind some shadow it contrived
for self-protection--
some reality it built to stand
against a deeper longing--
teaching it to whisper at them,
"Not a chance!"

Yet there is older wisdom,
pulling at the years and entering
its wiser plea to "Stop!
Go back before it is too late."

And each will hear,
and most will turn away
and gather up the years
until the day fades
like an aging coverlet.
And then the stone is set
until it too returns to dust,
and even love forgets.
~

Her hundreth birthday party

It was quiet in the meeting room
just down the hall, as I came in.
I knew that she would be, as well.

And there she was, propped in her wheel chair,
body in pink jumpsuit, cocked
far to the side, not quite asleep.

For her, there was no false facade.
One saw, and got a mumbling ancienne
and no apologies.

Then suddenly it was time
for people, punch, and platitudes,
kids and candy mints and cake.

The honored guest forsaken,
just as if she were not there,
reached out...I saw her once,

accepting then one small remembrance,
but too late, the speaker
had already turned away

and I, but for the press of day,
had need to cry; they missed it,
souls who turned hello into goodbye.

The small ones never really knew you, mom,
and that's ok; your spirit longs
to break away. The authors

of the books you knew, will soon
make room for Elna in their dusty rooms
along a corridor in paradise

where dusty reticence is blown away
by one enchanted newborn breath
of joy.
~

Upon this Rock

Join with me now in the creation of a faith;
may yours become the portrait
of the father of a God.
Give us the words
that we may spread the glory 'round.

Faith is the flight, we're told,
to know that which cannot be grasped
....that which is not,
in fact, it is beyond
no thing at all.

What it becomes, is footsteps of the mind
directed well past any time we know
or any universe;
we may elect when we may go,
but never when we may return.

But isn't that the nicest thing
about a faith?--
that there are no demands...no limits...
nothing to define.

And so on second thought,
you need no words at all.
~