doll resting

doll resting
head by the sill
of the bedroom window open
does she
can she
feel the
summer breeze?

June 21 2011

Bargaining

Found this in my local notepad. Including it now for completeness' sake.

Receding from us at the speed of time 
you are threatening to take with you certain memories 
I would rather have you leave behind in our care.
Take instead this blanket, redolent of your odor,
and this brush, with which I used too rarely to take
handfuls of your unused fur for the benefit of birds.
Here is a bone you never finished, and a ball just given
that would have been a better match for someone younger,
but kindly meant. Exchange for these clear recollection
of an autumn day when you cajoled me into chasing you
fruitlessly around the tall blue spruce to show me
clearly the advantage of four legs over two.
Give me back the memory of sitting at my peril
on the dawn dark kitchen floor with your black shadow
frantic to re-greet me and if necessary
bite my nose to say how much you loved and missed me.
Let me have to keep one summer walk 
along the sandy trail, with you nose-down 
until we reach the open sky and then turn home again.
You are gone no matter what I say,
but if you will permit these memories to stay
and not be lost along with you, I promise to be reconciled
to doing what is proper, and turn away.

April 2011

That She Has Given You Shoes

That she has given you shoes with which to walk upon
a pebbled underwater;
that your new bicycles stand half-mastered,
gears protected by the overhang of our bedroom;
that I can drive back from the store, tired,
along a turning way
that turns the day to evening,
with a young dog still eager in the wayback:
You know that these are currency more sound
than any I could spend,
whose tally tells the richness of my secret bank account,
upon which I will draw, yet never drain,
from day to daunting day
until the end.

June 18 2011

Thunder

Thunder made it all more serious.
The flapping wind,
the way the trees all rushed to lean to me,
but casually, as if to say,
"Yes, I could fall and take you with me,"
the momentary calms into which
the birds dropped calls as usual--
all these were only grace notes,
like the teasing drops of rain
to which the dog danced with panicky bravado.
But when the thunder uttered,
in the calm voice of the omnipotent invisible
in an unseen room next door--
then, yes, I stood,
and then, yes, I heard.

June 12 2011