In The Wind

Hi all - Happy Fathers' Day to those who are, love, have or have had fathers who they wish to honor and/or remember.  I committed the cardinal sin and wrote the following into the post without backing up and when my IPAD ran out of juice - my thoughts vanished with it ... I've tried to reconstruct -... but why is it (I believe because it is true) that what we lose - always seems to be far superior than what we try to duplicate.  Nevertheless here is is... Actually, my father would find my resistance to such rules typical - perhaps there is an homage in there as well....

***************

IN THE WIND - 

You told me to look for you in the wind
As we lay on our backs in the cool grass 
On that long ago hot summer day
You told me to look for you in the wind
As a breeze lifted and tens of thousands 
Of leaves rustled in filigree sunshine
Floating chestnut blossoms 
In our hair – I could not imagine your
leaving any more than I could imagine
the stopping of the wind – solid heat
you were, as my three year old self 
melted along your side inhaling your turpentine
cologne, your clean hands resting open
On your paint smeared shirt
My artist, poetic, impassioned paternus 
Black hair falling over closed eyes
I inhaled you – into each particle of my being
A canvas on an easel stood off in the full sunlight
Look for you in the wind and you would be there
I did not know you were going anywhere
Did not know that you were comforting as yet
Unborn, yet already fertilized, grief
I looked for you and just as belief was fading
You rose as powdered dust or chestnust blossoms
Sprung from your pine splintered box 
dancing dust whirling on the wind 

I felt the soft whisper of this summer breeze
Touching my grown-beginning to-crease-cheek
I feel the fragrance of paint and turpentine  
in the wind and in the shimmer
the rustle of flowers drifting
on another hot summer 
of filigreed light
and I do not have to look
any longer 
to see 

******

HAPPY FATHERS' DAY 

Moon-shine

Moon-shine

Come to me out in the moon-shine he whispered

Anything can happen on a night like tonight

When the stars tumble scoop by scoop over us

Come to me out in the moon-shine he whispered

Leave your clothes behind in drifted wake rippling in conscience cave

Come to me and we shall dance to shatters your parents’ dullard dreams

Giggle with me – Cut the shackles – Drop the load – 

Make not a single iota of  smattered sense with me, 

Laugh loud in side-splits that hurt so good

Come to me before we are too grown to indulge

in-love chattering - singing the song Solomon, Salome -  

Come out to me - as you are

In the moon-

shine...

CROSS-ROAD - A KAITLIN POEM

CROSS-ROAD -  A KAITLIN POEM *


When does the time come
when a child's laughter
trailing off across green
wet summer grass 
freezes into the ice
of winter, thaws again
into spring and still
echoes into summer.

When does the time come
when listening for the 
laughter becomes a memory
rather than an anticipated
possibility
When does the time come
when hope is replaced by
silence?

Who determines the cross-road
when laughter dies
on decomposing lips
of a child 
forever gone...




* this is a poem from a continuing series of poems that is not autobiographical 
simply a child that appeared and stayed for a while with me....

The Tale of Esmeralda La Tish

The Tale of Esmeralda La Tish

Esmeralda La Tish of town Amor was a shimmering girl

In the sun of her nine years – in the smile of her twirl

Known all about for her smiling and grinning and such

She was a shining girl nothing bothered her much

Until the day in the park leafing through page after page

Her eyes fell upon something that bubbled unfamiliar a rage

A rage that came rolling like thunder yard, by the yard,

changing her status from peace to action in one single flash without guard  

Spied she a hate full word painted in red on the curb of the seat of a bench like a murderous slash

Like a slash in her world of puffed clouds and sky blue

Spewing venom like thick tarry muck from a spill-bottle of goo

She rose from her bench this shimmering shiny girl with a twirl

Tried to wipe it away with handfuls of ripped words from page

after page

But the blood red word stayed and fueled this newly felt unstoppable rage

She felt her own blood pulse hard, drum loud in her ears

She felt the thunder of righteousness pound down through the years

From all those who had suffered with no one to speak

She knew she would do something right now as her outrage took form, became solid and thus hit its peak

Esmeralda La Tish that shimmering girl

Sat down on the smirched bench with a smile and a twirl

Came to rest near the steps of the courthouse with a smile sparkling deep in each eye transformed into living stone for a good while

And now these long years since that bright sunshiny day

People travel by trains, jets, and boats here to see and to say

That shimmering glittering statue of the girl with the book

A vision of all that is good appeared when Esmeralda was took

A remarkable likeness of that shimmering magical girl with a book

That hid with her body, her marbled words and her breath

The haters words obscuring forever and ever their particular hook

Was a strange thing in the sparkled town of Amor by the sea

The seated shining girl statue appeared to sit down at the end of a twirl –

And still unto today her smile beams over the town from that high point on the steps of the courthouse by the sea –

the unmovable, irrefutably lovely mysterious icon that came there for all to learn from and see,

in the town of Amor where no hatred can ever be 

Simmering Shimmer

Simmering Shimmer

There on the way to the park

No more than a yard

Something shimmering

lies on the pavement

a “Status” statement
stained with the spill of something 

strawberry ice-cream

Or so 
she thinks 
as she bends and lifts and reads

a surrendered-to-the-Universe

spewing of spurned love

come to rest here at the curb

Leaving only the 
“How could you?!!!!!???”

held like fighter jets too impossibly huge for her hand 
hanging onto a corner -  

Thunder rumbles suddenly in the hot summer sky

Jolted she turns with quick steps back home

Dropping the sticky question in the trash