Fifteen minutes later, six bodies forgotten in the collected dust of memory upon the world.
Six souls passed away, imprisoned from the light of God. The sky shrinks away from the edge of earth as the six join 1139.
I did not know any of them. Not one soul. I did not have a friend, a neighbor, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, no son, no daughter among them. But I mourn them, as if I knew them, as if they were family. I feel the empty spot they left upon leaving the world.
You ask me why I feel their loss so… My answer—because I am human. In return, I ask…Why do you not feel it so?
No answers found in the mocking caw of crows who laugh at humanity.
“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Bulwer-Lytton wrote long ago.
Words, with strength enough to repel the bullets violently vomited by rapid fire weapons of wars not being fought on this soil, in this land, in these schools, abandon me.
My words have no power. I cannot weave a bulletproof shield of words to protect my grandchildren from this earth they will inherit: where four-year-old preschoolers practice active shooter drills, beginning their journey of learning of how to live without innocence: We created a skin of fear into which they are born, and now, we teach them to live inside that skin of fear with lockdown drills, metal detectors, and lessons in barricading classroom doors, as we wait for the hollowness of thoughts and prayers and good guys with guns to save us all.
With what voices, with what words will we speak in answer-- when our ghost children rise to ask us why we did not save them.
A gray morning starts the day.
A light dusting of wet snow
greets me and the dogs
before my coffee and breakfast
can have a say in the matter.
And you are no longer
in this world
to see the same sky
or to visit me here.
The last twelve years
we made up for
the lost years of the forty-eight
we’ve been friends--
Our marathon talks about our kids,
our hopes and worries for them,
the birth of your grandchildren,
the death of my wife,
the blasphemous betrayal of aging--
all our griefs and our celebrations.
Sharing, as adults, the things
We could not share as kids,
how we survived the fog bank
attack of our mother’s hearts
upon our own to live our lives
in the sunlight of the earth.
You were the one to word it best-
Like the little girl with the curl
in the middle of her forehead:
When they were good,
they were very good
and when they were bad,
they were horrid.
How often, always it seems to me,
you bested me in our repartees of humor and wit,
until I did cry, Uncle, I give!
The two of us laughing,
fighting hard to catch our breath.
In the end, your body betrayed your spirit.
I would rewrite your ending if I could.
I’d write you healthy for years to come,
running and playing with your granddaughters,
seeing graduations and weddings—
Of course, selfishly,
I’d write you many visits
to see me here in this mountain paradise
of a place where I am blessed to be.
Where we’d sit—
you sipping your Jameson Irish Whiskey
and I my glass of wine,
as we laughed and teased each other
in our merciless way.
Then you’d talk of your son
and I my daughter,
what motherhood meant,
and how we survived our own mothers.
I’d write you happiness,
finding love with an Andy Garcia
look alike who would worship you.
I’d write your ending
with a pain free body,
sitting in the sun
while you watched
your great-grandchildren at play.
Finally, selfishly,
I’d rewrite feeling your absence
from this world.
I tire of seeing memes about having a positive attitude and choosing one’s feelings plastered social media. It is no surprise our young people are in the midst of a mental health crisis when constantly bombarded with messages telling them, in essence, “The only reason you are sad is because you are making the choice to be sad,” or, (one of my favorites for sabotaging anyone’s self esteem) “You have a choice to make your day wonderful or not.” While such simplistic messages are well meaning, I believe they are sometimes extremely toxic. After all, what if your parent died on that day? Did you make the choice to have a horrible day? What if you go home to a toxic abusive environment? How can you choose to make your day wonderful? So before reposting those wonderful positive messages on social media, let’s all take a step back and think about what we are really saying to someone who may be going through something or in an environment where there is no choice in the matter but to feel what he or she feels. Let’s send messages that say it’s okay to feel what you feel and acknowledge it and to take time to feel it all,so something can be gained from it—a lesson, a positive action taken, whatever it may be, so we know our suffering was not for naught. Hence, this piece.
Each new year brings
Now this garden grief
Nourished by regret
Each year, this day, here—
Standing, kneeling, sitting—I
Spend tears, words, wishes
All meaningless now,
In the barren garden grief
Flowers never bloom
Seven years gone now--
Nothing roots, though it has tried,
In the garden grief inside
I can hide in catacombs of colors and never look to the sky. My blood shed, bled out in tiny droplets of all the years of parting, dripping, draining in the darkness And carried away, scattered to the winds, Leavings upon the ground, seedless seeds, Sprouting up in colorless flowers of summer without colors, Without the dreams of sunlight on their faces, Without fragrance sweet, divinity in scents we can never forget lost. We learn to live with regrets taken, earned, packed away With the mortgage of things within our hearts, within our lifetimes of meaning, Within our trying just one more damn time, Drifting up in clouds of long-ago cigarette smoke. Crush this dried out husk of me, Scatter those particles of dust to the wind And see if colors sprout once that dust settles upon the ground, See if there’s meaning left within their regrets, See if there’s fragrance, some elegance of divinity within a scent To be remembered when there is nothing, Nothing left but this wisp of memory Within your breath. Let go my hand, love. Leave me wrapped in the shroud Of all my days and regrets shared along the way To here, this time of parting. Leave me to hide away In this catacomb of colors.
I gave you all my roses, The many colors I had. Cut them all from the bushes. I knew there would be no more, And I cut them for you.
The last few dozen blooms I cut them down for you. The bushes are dead now.
They will bud no more. I double, triple checked. The limbs snap crisply in dryness, Easily between my weakened hands. No supple green within. A single snap finishes each limb. And so finishes each bush.
The wind and rain stopped by last night,
Had a few minor temper tantrums outside
As I stood watching from the door.
They slapped the trees limbs around a bit
And kicked at bits of loose trash in the street.
Nothing more violent than that.
No pushing down trees.
No pummeling hail.
Rather calm for a storm.
Yet it killed the heat of summer,
Murdering it without a hint of passion
And ushering in a cold windy day
To begin the fall to winter.
At dawn,
I stand here,
Warming myself
With this cup of coffee,
Mourning a summer
That passed without passion.
Spin the world back
Align the planets
In time and place
Before terms of “modern history”
Before debates of definitions
And the numbers swelled
To defy all meanings
Coalesced of horror and terror
When men hadn’t lost reason
Or eaten seductive fruits
Of celebrity and hate.
Spin the numbers down
Beyond all the eights
Of Miami, Louisville
San Francisco, Omaha,
Carthage, Appomattox,
Manchester, Seal Beach
Spin back the nines
In Jacksonville and Waddell,
Red Lake High School,
Charleston and Roseburg
Spin down the ten
Of Alabama
That added yet more
Spin down the even dozens
In Aurora, Atlanta,
And the Navy Yard
Spin down the thirteens
Of Camden, Wilkes-Barre,
Binghamton, Seattle,
Fort Hood,
And Columbine High
Spin down the fourteens
At San Bernardino
And the Edmond Post Office
Spin down the eighteen
Of the University of Texas
Spin down the twenty-one
In San Ysidro
Spin down the twenty-three
At Killeen
Spin down the twenty-seven
Of Sandy Hook
Spin down the thirty-two
At Virginia Tech
Spin down the forty-nine
In Orlando
Spin down the fifty-eight
Of Vegas
Spin down
To a time of innocence
Before blood
Of four hundred eighty-nine martyrs
Soaked the second
Before tears watered
Graves of the framers
Spin, spin us back
Or
Spin, spin us forward
To a new time
When no hate fed madman
Can attempt alchemy
With gunpowder, iron, and blood.
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 