Misstepping as I exited my yard,
I skewed my foot and let its outer side
impact the ground. My landing wasn’t hard –
I tried to walk it off and not abide
an injury – but something must have pried
apart, a little metatarsal thing.
My walk is off. Now pain I guess will guide.
I meant to glide but I’ve a damaged wing.
(Huitain)
Regardless of the local temperature,
no matter what the calendar declares,
I’ve learned we’re fully into Spring, for sure,
when this tree buds to leaf. Its twiggy hairs
don’t feather while each other tree prepares
to start to eat the sunshine, air, and dirt.
On College close to Alcatraz it flares,
and every year I watch its laggard spurt.
(Huitain)
Returning home I wouldn’t raise the shade,
although it wasn’t hot at ten past noon.
Awake at five, I did odd jobs and played
with kids for hours. Then I waited for
three forms of transportation, that conveyed
me home amid track closures and the crowds
of college graduation (gowns arrayed
but caps concealed). I couldn’t get home soon
enough. It’s my emotional first-aid.
(Magic 9)
Forgetting what you left the room to do
occurs at every age, but frequency
increases – every senior knows that’s true –
and doesn’t seem as funny recently.
Confusing hand and mind, so that you threw
the coffee grounds away that ought to be
arrayed beneath the roses? Laugh a bit.
Distraction’s not dementia. You’re still fit.
(Ottava Rima)
Though born and raised in Berkeley, she’s too much
for Westerners to tolerate with ease.
She fills a room and ambles fast. She’s such
a driven worker, friends and enemies
retreat from competition. Expertise
is what she likes, employing pull and torque
she had from birth and at her mother’s knees.
That’s why she felt so natural in New York.
(Huitain)
Asleep all Winter,
they Spring to beauty, and bees
brew toxic honey.
My high school friend has lost her mate, I hear,
two months ago. Her email yesterday
announced his death. Residing nowhere near
we lived when young, exchanging words the way
we do now (twice a year some birthday news),
and knowing he was over 99,
I don’t leap to condolence she can’t use.
She loved him long and well and will be fine.
They’d months to ready for his graceful death.
She’s now had weeks adjusting to the space
he occupied before his final breath,
surrounding now no body she’ll embrace.
I know her nature, understand her soul.
My friend will transit through this passage whole.
I disagree but dare not disapprove.
There may not be a wrong-and-right to it.
The better part of wisdom could behoove
a parent to adjust to time. What fit
my ancestors was inappropriate
for me when I was struggling with mine.
I witness now a difference, and admit
their happiness. They’re odd but may be fine.
(Huitain)
I lately have a lot of leisure time.
Retirement first freed a chunk for me
to travel, read, solve puzzles, work on rhyme,
and sample ways to slow declivity.
Pandemic damped down my society,
and grandkids aged to need me less at play.
Hiatus at my erstwhile company
each week of late presents another day.
(Huitain)
She asked my comment – should she intervene?
Sit down and look sincerely in his eyes,
and tell him to escape the liquored scene
he lives with? To abandon compromise
and leave the lady love he doesn’t love?
Her son has always acted like he heeds
advice from her. Should she say better shove
off now, and move to satisfy your needs?
Oh dear, I said. Your boy is 56.
He hasn’t asked your counsel. It’s worth less
than nothing, unsolicited. The fix
could be in psychotherapy, I guess.
If you can steer him down that avenue,
that may be all your mother love can do.
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