For five days there was nothing on my list,
and I leaned into leisure all I could,
aboard my landboat sloop and comfort-kissed,
admiring tile, glass, gas flames, and wood.
Beginning at a luncheon with a good
old friend, I then embraced full solitude,
and hunkered down in down. My only “should” –
avoiding too much celebration food.
(Huitain)
Pre-natal yoga seemed a likely choice
today: attending warmly to my girth.
I tried to cradle belly and rejoice
although I’m over 70 on earth,
and 40 years beyond the younger’s birth.
Today I didn’t hate my globe of fat
that at 16 was toned, completely flat,
and unproductive actually. In truth,
I love my abdomen. I’m thinking that
I gestate wisdom now, in place of youth.
(Dizain)
They told me history repeats itself.
I heard it from my father and in class.
I found the phrase in books upon a shelf,
with liberty to browse. It came to pass
I got it, reading fiction, history:
the cruelties Dickens caught, Voltaire and Swift.
I noticed awful similarity
in Austen’s arguments and Orwell’s drift.
But repetition now accelerates –
the cycle shrinks as pixels blink and spread.
The body politic degenerates
at speed – depravity is never dead.
And virus surges yet, that wasn’t solved.
It’s bleak to see the way our kind’s evolved.
Imagine that you’re driving slowly here,
when someone darts too fast for you to stop.
You can’t avoid collision – though you veer
and brake, a bone is snapped and tendons pop.
You’re traumatized although you’re not to blame,
but sympathy and aid is not for you.
The injured needs attention, and the aim
is succor for the downed. That’s what we do.
So when a friend explodes in mental break,
with snap hostility and slamming door,
for sure we feel your mystified heartache,
but our concern for who flipped out is more.
It’s weird to hear you, sighing, calibrate
our empathy, abetted by your mate.
I’ve lived in these parts all my adult years,
enjoying weather and topography,
admiring how my neighborhood appears,
inhaling bay-washed air. Diversity
abounds and has accustomed me to see
the postures in the streets, the manner how
the Oakland nod goes up initially –
a greeting that is nothing like a bow.
(Huitain)
We visit Mom fortnightly after work,
but sometimes cause arises to postpone.
I travel, or a banquet throws a quirk,
or Covid makes her want to dine alone.
Declaring in our daily telephone
exchange, regret my brother chose delay,
I then receive a text from him, with groan
that Mom decided no. That’s just their way.
(Huitain)
Deciding that I’d want some mushroom soup
for dinner on a wet December night,
I caught a bus to ride a market loop,
to buy ingredients to cook it right.
Securing broth and fungi, I was quite
delighted to attain by smartphone app
the lucky-numbered bus – I saw the light,
embarked, and made it home without mishap.
(Huitain)
A staggered walking shuffle after stroke,
a toddler’s drunken stumble to a chair,
a tentative attempt when someone spoke
on subjects sensitive, with urgent care,
all beg for some encouragement, and share
a need for help developing a knack.
I can’t imagine any act more fair
than gentle push of palm upon the back.
(Huitain)
Alone is worse, perhaps, but maybe not.
This year our conversation’s like a curse.
I used to like to talk with you a lot.
Alone is worse?
We’re neither so infirm we need a nurse,
and though there’s nouns I know you have forgot,
I wait for wit and now receive reverse.
Declaring love, of late I’m sensing rot.
Avoiding bicker trims my talk to terse.
I doubt the phrase that I’m about to jot:
alone is worse.
(Roundel)
I know you work on balance, heart and mind
and body too, and you are 48.
To expectations I am not inclined –
comparing paths is vain – we can’t equate
our progress for you’re scores of years behind
(a generation, if we calibrate).
Advice is cheap, but don’t seek recompense
from bitter martyrdom. That’s my two cents.
(Ottava Rima)
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