It’s seldom coffee loses its appeal
for me, as tonic mugs of morning fuel.
The only days without are if I feel
an illness coming on, when germs are cruel-
victorious. Today’s was like a jewel
of taste, near chocolate-y, and rich in smell.
Enjoying sip by sip each molecule,
this may portend I’ll keep on feeling well.
Remembering A Christmas Carol, read
when I was 12, one summer long ago,
and screened each winter, this year someone led
discussion with the questions: do we know,
was Marley visited? Did he ignore
some spirit lessons which were given breath?
I think so, but what bothers me much more,
is goodness only loosed by fear of death.
Proponents of religion often claim
we won’t behave without the threat of hell –
morality in poor parental frame,
like self-esteem won’t spur us to do well?
In fact, I watch us strive to recreate
the past, devolving into sin and hate.
They love each other well enough to live
together, name each other closest friend,
seldom quarrel, readily forgive,
and try to find activities that blend.
We go back long. Joint memories extend
five decades. But as far as I can tell,
each wonders at the other’s stated end
and neither even knows themselves that well.
We know self-preservation instinct’s strong –
all act reflexively to duck a fail.
But I just watched an expert get it wrong,
I think, about the way we flail
as babies, startled, arms and legs outflung,
and, gasping then, delay our next exhale.
It’s not just neonates. Forever more,
endangered, we concave to save our core.
I am not ill. My brother didn’t share
his cold with me. And others failed to spill
the germs that recently seem everywhere.
I am not ill.
Though I’ve a knee that warns me to instill
due caution how I move, it’s only fair
appreciating wellness, so I will
this weekend day to gratitude and care
with exercise and diet, to fulfill
a state of anti-sickness. I declare
I am not ill.
You think her age means she got something right?
I’ve known her for a quarter century,
and I say no. And she who sleeps all night
at 68? Her conscience isn’t clear;
there’s much a friend can mention to indict
a character who knuckles under fear.
The evidence is obvious and bright
of line though shaded in life’s mystery –
desert’s delivered with disparity.
Near three score years ago I crossed this span
to leave my parents’ home and live apart,
apace at 17 to run the plan
of university and make my start.
I little guessed (it happens no one can)
where I would plant my future and my heart,
and even now, to dine with Mom, I’m found
revisiting my teenage stomping ground.
I knew your choice was wrong. I did my best
to influence without an argument.
I tried predicting what you hadn’t guessed
would be the outcome, and no accident.
From love, restraining fervor, with intent
to gently redirect where you would go,
I have to witness what’s now consequent,
with no enjoyment from I told you so.
I thought I’d hate the windows gone, but now
it’s not so bad. They won’t be long this way.
And in the winter chill, the blocks allow
a cozy privacy I face each day.
I sit with fragrant coffee and I play
selected games, with glances toward this wall,
imagining a cave, in comfort’s sway,
and feeling nothing bothering, at all.
Admitting that she voted for the jerk,
and not for any reason that makes sense,
now even with a squinting mind, small work
is needed to contest intelligence
that’s avalanched by damage so immense
and early, like a camp-bred refugee
baptized in fear and hatred – she’s intense
and never had a chance at sanity.
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