Matriculation is a minor rite
when marking elevation to first grade.
Free choice, a film, and donuts were delight,
according to reports. The students played,
the teacher sat – all suitably “last-dayed.”
And though his folks expected he would grieve
at change, it wasn’t sadness he conveyed.
The pathos was his parents’, I believe.
(Huitain)
I wonder sometimes if I can exert
an influence on how my insides mend.
It doesn’t seem outlandish to assert
(or theorize, at least) that to intend
sincerely can’t do ill, to heal a hurt.
I pilot vigor and attempt to send
good where I need it currently within:
extremities and under spots of skin.
(Ottava Rima)
Asserting dogwoods don’t grow locally
(he said they need a winter freeze to bloom),
I countered with how many I can see
around my neighborhood. I don’t presume
to knowledge (though my cranium has room
for more, I’ll never be a botanist),
but now my walks abut a petal boom
of blossoms too abundant to be missed.
(Huitain)
A mien recalls someone I used to know
who shared my bus and talked incessantly.
It isn’t she, but likeness triggers flow
of shuttered stuttered dormant memory.
I found her boring then and didn’t see
a reason to befriend her, view her place
or show her mine. The idea striking me
is how completely I forgot her face.
(Huitain)
There seems to be substantial disconnect
between the news and my experience.
Reports on screen will lead one to expect
rude violence amounting to immense.
The smash-and-grabs, the muggings, all the guns
now commonplace, group looting, road rage, more
they say is rife, while panic phrasing runs
through all the texts I’m reading on NextDoor.
I’m obviously old, but I still walk
and ride mass transit in the cities here.
I don’t encounter threats – I rarely balk
or change direction. There does not appear
to be a cause to arm or stay inside.
But news is bad, and I am mystified.
A blue light glows I never saw before,
although I pay attention to what shows
on every inch of ceiling, wall and floor –
a blue light glows.
I can’t assume it’s new. I don’t suppose
a range hood can evolve or mutate – sure
I must have missed the sign its current flows?
Could some vibration shake or wake it more?
That theory’s not supported, heaven knows,
but something near has altered lately, for
a blue light glows.
(Roundel)
Last week I had to rest my foot so much,
that though I read and screened, and tried to find
some ways to use time well and stay in touch
with news, I’d little other on my mind
than getting back to walking. That was such
an occupier, rate of mend inclined
each stanza, overused, redundant too,
till I was just as bored with it as you.
(Ottava Rima)
On Tuesday last, before I left my place,
I iced my slowly-mending foot again.
I thought the wound was healing, but the pace
of my recovery was dismal-slow.
I had to be upright to wash my face,
to brush my teeth, to necessary-walk.
My age retards, but I could see a trace
of normal dorsum. Still unsure of when,
I took to making social plans, in case.
(Magic 9)
The benefit to penning notes like these
(most days a rhyming form of diaries)
is I can scan the posts I’ve left behind,
and let those metered syllables remind
me clearly of a symptom suffered, which
I thought might be forever. So the itch
persistent on my neck and chest abated –
a month from now, foot pain may be outdated.
What can I do, when weather’s cold and gray
although we’ve passed the very end of May,
and age requires weeks instead of days
to mend a little injury? Just praise
my fortune that I have this cozy home,
the leisure to compose a little poem,
the funds to buy and time to cook my food,
the easy chair to foster gratitude.
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