Although we didn’t plan the pregnancy,
we welcomed it with pride and gratitude.
And 8 months later, we learned how to be
engaged in work more vital than we dreamed –
an unremitting labor: infancy
to kid to teen, unglamourous and tough.
Of course there were some signs we failed to see,
our vision by fatigue and closeness skewed.
You call that arrogance? Try empathy.
Encountering a bole of sycamore,
it stopped me as it often has before.
I touch its textured bark, its patterned scale
like camouflage or puzzle pieces, pale
beneath and shading gray to green. It’s plane
elsewhere, and pollarded in parks, but range
from root to upward, outward, fills its frame,
and root in Middle English is its name.
Her meanness can’t be keeping her alive,
but maybe it’s the boon anxiety
unmedicated prompting her to thrive.
Last night I screened a documentary
on Xanax and its kind, that let me see
disquiet triggers minds to process more,
while meds depress the brain’s activity,
and steady doses could lose aging’s war.
As often as I don’t know what to do,
a little time permits some clarity.
And though I’m still without an active view,
the path I’d shun cedes all opacity.
I’m certain then where I don’t want to be,
like out tonight for food and drink with you.
I choose my couch and not your company;
it’s selfish angry chatter I’ll eschew.
I think I might have balanced overlong
on my left leg (I wobble since the day
I misstepped on my stairs – I’m not as strong
on port as starboard), for it’s with dismay
I sense an ache in hip, a twinge that’s wrong
in outer knee, and while I will not stay
off exercise, this morning’s choice is slow
and gentle senior-sanctioned yoga flow.
I want a play that’s more than talking heads.
Aboard for stagecraft and a gripping plot,
impressed with how the sound and lighting sheds
significance, I think today I’ve got
a ticket to performance that will not
be boring. They may give me what I ask –
a multi-level set, a script that’s hot,
a matinee that’s worthy of my mask.
Ahead of me the asphalt arrows, steep,
appearing nearly vertical. I ride
the flat approach a little scared, but keep
on pedaling – I’m fit and fortified
by habit, knowing push-and-pull applied
repeatedly – just fast enough to stay
upright – will take me up a mountainside
that looked so daunting from a mile away.
I vote because I can, I should, I must.
It’s like a centerpoint of legacy.
But to be honest, it’s with some disgust
that I complete the ballot currently.
When young I read it close and carefully,
but sliding sideways now upon a slope
of venal, crooked surreality,
I ink and post the thing with little hope.
Did you forget the best revenge is living well?
So elegant, and more than that, it works –
it means you won’t waste time to try to tell
the honest souls apart from irksome jerks.
(I think you did).
Did you forget what goes around redounds on you?
Some call it karma but, by any name,
it seems malevolence increases, due
to dark intention, and it has poor aim.
(I think you did).
Did you forget to dig a secondary pit
beside where you’d inter that enemy?
That if you eat revenge appropriate,
it’s best served cold – though tasteless that will be.
(I think you did).
I’d never counsel you to turn the other cheek,
but when you rise above, you start to soar.
Nobody wants you tentative or meek,
but you forgot how wise you were before.
You pay no mind to syllables I speak,
although you know I’ve never been inclined
to harness language in a vain technique.
You pay no mind.
What would it cost? The coin’s not hard to find.
The only type of currency I seek
is presence, soft-acknowledged by my kind.
Your eyes meet mine. Your smile isn’t weak.
I thought you could afford me as we twined.
But decades contradict. I say with pique,
you pay no mind.
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