That slip of the mind
That momentary disengagement
Like the clutch in the old Dodge
I think: I have to get a message to her
Then: how can I get a message to her
As if it were a problem I could puzzle out and solve
Then I remember.
All this in a heartbeat
FEWalls
Two sets of them:
thieves in the neighborhood
at 2 A.M.
Thieves testing every door
looking for unlocked cars, sheds, basements,
things left outside, things unattended
looking for the slip-ups, the mistakes
looking for the careless, the forgetful, the unaware,
like water on the roof
seeking any crack in its path down.
These predators angle for weakness
hunting for a pay-back, a paycheck,
hunting for what they will never find
here.
FEWalls
A cake her father bought her mother –
always on the frosting the shape of
a clock with the hand five minutes
to midnight for the New Year’s Eve
birthday gal, happy in their dancing
celebrating then, even now
as a daughter shares that story
so others hold that memory
clear, sharing to widen the net –
rippling sound waves in the ocean
racing to other shores,
the butterfly wings fanning into winds.
Where do the memories hide
in the stringy brain, in that long goodbye?
What in this still celebration grabbing tight
this moment holding back the river of time
with the stiffening dam of resolve
strengthens the many triple-braided cords
not easily broken?
FEWalls
Once, in the garden of Jack London’s home,
I sat so still thinking of him
that a wren landed on my head
thinking I was a statue, perhaps,
a place to stand and survey the land
for his kind of food, berries or bugs,
while I thought of Jack London –
how he didn’t wait for inspiration
but wrote every day
insisting the words appear on the page,
those stories that ripen as the berries in his garden
as alive as the birds getting ready to feed.
FEWalls
A Long Perspective 