If he’s okay, I’ll table my concern.
I had a vision only yesterday
of child pain, but I’ll no longer churn
if he’s okay.
He’s 8. I well remember unkind play
around that age – cruel taunts and games that spurn.
Protecting parents then, I didn’t say.
I know you ask upon his day’s return,
but do you plumb creatively, the way
you must to prompt response? I want to learn
if he’s okay.
Of what she needs I waiting overhear –
a walker with a seat. Then she divides
her Reese’s Pieces with employees near,
while sharing news collected from her rides.
She parks her chair on carpet, and it’s clear
she likes to talk. Her presence here provides
light entertainment. Now I leave to chat
with someone medical.
And that is that.
Perhaps nobody wants to hear me pan
a mediocre book, or to attend
her criticizing. That’s in no one’s plan,
but we’re together now, and we can lend
each other ears. Six days we get to spend
some quarter hours in our room, the car,
or walking, breathing in and out a blend
of love and wry complaint. That’s how we are.
We’ll touch down after 50 minutes more,
but it will take me time and steps apace
before I cross the threshold of my door
to see in my own mirror’s glass my face.
And though I’ll savor home’s beloved space,
I’ll have to rise and leave again tomorrow.
Until I wake on Thursday in my place,
my time is less for me to own than borrow.
Five hundred words or twenty minutes spent,
whichever limit is acquired first,
is all I plan to ask. That’s an extent
attainable, for even with no burst
of brilliance, I’ll transfer the tales I meant,
by posing prose in paragraphs unversed.
In sixty days or so from now, I’ll see
a draft produced from continuity.
I wondered what to pray about, last night,
within a gathering of mostly old
as I, and meditating by the light
electrically provided. In that fold
of sanctuary, one was uncontrolled
and inarticulate, abruptly loud.
That clap of voice inspired me to hold
all judgment down amid a gentle crowd.
I sputtered, cut, and muttered for a while,
but learned before that went on for too long
that few would need protection from my style.
Retreating then to concentrate on song,
and modifying efforts with a smile,
I came to realize less and less was wrong.
Soon editing will slow, and I’ll proceed
to only post what’s new, where fancies lead.
I didn’t fly to quibble or complain –
my goal is soft reception, open eyes
and ears – but I don’t welcome the disdain
that some beloved faces exercise.
My purpose here is not to analyze,
and no one says a lesson that I crave
from less experience or fledging wise.
So please don’t try to teach me to behave.
She’s always known some personalities
who seem to lack a filter from the brain
to speech the mouth emits, who fail to freeze
their phrases as intentions entertain
a purpose or direction. She’d unease
most times they blurted, but she’ll now refrain
from comment, catching self in words unneeded –
an advocate in vain for what’s unheeded.
It doesn’t have to be conspiracy.
Perhaps the matter’s closer to PR.
We all like stories – romance, fantasy –
a little more than bios as they are.
Creation myths, apocalypse and more –
the chauvinistic lore and hero quests,
are what the people want; from online store
or ticket vendors, such is what sells best.
I grew up in the 50s, and imbibed
America the great, the dream, the fair.
In school the Western slogans diatribed
amid dead ends, contaminated air,
and promises as empty as the themes
that advertisers pitch by schemes to memes.
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