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Ways to Eat a Peach
There are many ways to eat a peach;
Carefully, peel and section the fruit—
or chunk it, cube it, puree it—
or shove the damn thing in your mouth
as you stand over the kitchen sink,
letting the sweet sugary juice
rolldown your chin and onto
your fingers. Your eyes roll back
in ecstasy when the succulence
sends you back to the days
when you sat on your haunches
naked in the forest –gulping it down
beside your ancestors.
The In Between
Between being born into
And taken out from this place,
Between that first breath and the last,
Between the depths of failures
and the pinnacle of success.
Between earning degrees and finding jobs,
Then losing them. Finding and losing love,
Getting married and sharing children
Growing up to be parents.
Between climbing mountains and winning races
And standing over grave stones to say a quiet prayer
There runs the soft and gentle joys
Of small tasks tumbling down daily—
Combing a child’s hair after baths,
Pushing the swing to gleeful cries
“higher-Higher” until the sun sets
Reading bed time stories to tiny bodies sprawled out
Like kittens on a matted shag carpet.
The in-between life of raking autumn leaves
And making beds and shopping for groceries
And planting spring flowers, going to recitals and games and PTA.
It is here, in the easy sway of
The mundane that I find my footing.
God, save me from forgetting
This— for if I do
I will have forgotten that I once lived.
In Memory of WCW
I tell myself stories so I can
tolerate this spot of ground
I can’t seem to call home.
The story of what lies between two
men I walk by who tap there
styrafoam cups together. Do they celebrate
their friendship or their life
or the hidden booze?
I don’t know if my stories are
right or wrong – the one I tell myself
of why the young girl weeps alone
in the booth at the corner café,
if the man across from me
on the train has a place to sleep,
if the woman feeding squirrels in the park
feeds her only friends.
Tiny stories seem to be
whispered in my heart
by ancestors wanting to
be heard. They rumble through
me as I move about my day
listening, watching, waiting
for the story underneath
everything—even the one
told us by the good doctor poet–
of that old red wheel barrel
leaning against the barn
glistened by the rain-
a story that changed poetry
forever.
Dove Songs
I am cast in a spell–
by the melancholy song
of mourning doves
forced from small bellies
on this warm summer morning
I sit alone on
the porch step with
nothing to do
but listen.
Black Jack lumbers by in his
stained overalls, spitting
tobacco juice on the grass.
Even he could not disrupt
my rapture as the morning
stands still.
When I get old and hear
the doves again, I hope
I will still stop
with the earth and follow
their sad song as it flies
upon the breeze.
At the Last
You and I are older now,
moving slower, rising from bed,
shaking like a reed in the breeze.
Our loose flesh wraps around
these brittle sticks
telling stories of survival
without words to anyone who sees.
We slip into obscure corners
of shops and cafés and sit unnoticed—
shadowy figures on the edges of life,
while youth streams ahead
catching us sometimes in a glimpse
unaware we are here.
We have no post to keep now.
It was given to one more
vigorous but less reflective.
We wander here and there
to sit in silence and remember
The youth we once were.
We see the young girl singing
and laughing and clapping her hands
while driving alone down the street
as if there was nothing else but now.
And we remember how
it was just that way with us.
Just wait, dear one, for that day will come
when you will look for us
The day you run out of meaning
which always happens at the worst time.
Then maybe you will see us
sitting, doing nothing special,
showing up each day
to what is new.
We are for you a silent witness
standing as sentinels in the wilderness
of age set here to show you how
to keep your sparkled eyes
when the skin begins to sag.
Hummingbird Prayer
The back-yard fountain
showers drops of water
onto the ponds surface without a rest.
Day in and day out sending the pure sound
of refreshment and solace and comfort
across the yard and through my open window.
The sound draws my head
up from prayer.
I gaze out the window and see
a hummingbird hover
over the highest stream
inserting its hollow beak
into the rope of water
drinking deep while wings flutter
20 times /second
Zip –and gone
just like this prayer.
HOMELESS
They stand together
holding each other up
on the corner in darkness
Dad is not sure what’s next.
For days the son cried to sleep
While dad dreams of what could have been.
The son once trusted dad to fix things—
Before the world turned evil.
He is learning dad can’t fix this
without help.
Two weeks of sleeping in the woods
Was ok, until the cold nights arrived.
For tonight, they have a bed at the Roadside Inn.
Tomorrow they will search together
for the next one.
To be a boy, and to know dad can’t
fix this – is altogether too much knowledge.
Tonight, in bed, he will again
cry himself to sleep.
Last Rites
Kneeling beside her coffin
I didn’t want to look
Everyone behind me was watching
To see what I would do.
The smell of ethanol floating
Just above her face.
She looked calm, but I was not fooled.
She was not there–an image in 3D
Painted brighter than a toddler should be.
I had seen dead people in caskets
In the chapel as I passed by
To my classroom –but they were strangers
I never knew alive. She was the youngest
Of us all–one who came late
One who reminded us to laugh.
A few were laughing in the back
This bothered me….
She who was joy is now gone, leaving a vacant hole
even God could not fill
I would for years try with something else.
We were all play-acting not knowing
What to say or do or feel.
Each one in their turn–sad, angry
Strong, wistful, fateful, hopeful
We were all lost. Only she knew the way,
But she would not tell. She only smiled
A fake smile.
Ora et Labora
This night fades into smoking embers
The hooded frame of some obscure monk
Leans against a marble pillar
Fingering beads and muttering.
Do not disturb him. He is at work,
Releasing all desires but the one
That drove him to this place when
Just a boy in order to lean against this pillar
Before the world awakens and beg
For mercy, not for himself-he is long forgotten
But for the world.
Do not disturb him at his work
For in this cold, silent, dark womb
an epic battle wages on
For the salvation of the world,
The weight of which presses him down
into his seat, fingering beads
And muttering.
Love is a plate of food
Today I must be content with
love as a plate of food
Placed before me like the thousand before
Sometimes laid gently down, sometimes
Tossed at me with a hmmph
Rushing in at the end of the workday
Never pausing to remove her coat or shoes
She dives in to the task
Cupboards and drawers thrown open
And digging for the right pot and pan
Still agitated over last night’s spar
Yet love or duty take over
The stove heats up and the chicken simmers
The sweet and sour sauce spits and bubbles
A glass of wine to sip while
Roasting brussel sprouts with garlic.
Chopping celery and carrots
Grating swiss cheese over Romaine lettuce
“Dinner” she calls and I take my place
Once more, like every other evening
Once more, over and over again
Love is a plate of food.
In the Shadow of the Cathedral
So much has changed- so much forgotten,
until a child asks “Grandpa,
what was it like growing up?”
As four generations huddle in a small room
around a dining table.
Slowly the answer unfolds in stories—
joined by his siblings, each recall
snippets of life through thoughts
and images that skip along
like a worn vinyl record.
Taken separately these loose threads
would fall carelessly to the ground.
But this afternoon, each piece
is woven together into an intricate
tapestry that tells of 200 years
of one Midwest Irish Catholic family
whose author is everywhere–
timeless — who sits among us.
Parents sense something special
is about to happen —
‘Listen to this, kids—this is important!”,
as the stories are ushered up
from hidden parts into lips and eyes,
first in laughter–then in tears.
As story triggers story,
grandkids stand still and hushed
as if they knew they were
in the presence of something felt yet unseen–
As if standing on holy ground.
Raptured by oral history sights and sounds
come forth-first slowly, as casual as asking for
another cup of coffee, and then the story tellers–
seeing from higher ground–
let go– and like a breached wall
the dam breaks through and we are drenched
with an unseen connection to the past.
How the family Christmas money was lost
and the family banker made it good.
How Grandma and Grandpa
were up at 5:00 am every morning
so they could talk alone before
the kids got up and the day began.
The parents lingered after the last story was told,
not wanting to leave this place and return
to today’s duties. There was a sadness
in the room when they were finished.
For this moment faded memory
was restored to its first luster–
a connection had been repaired–
the living memorials in front of us
reached out over the chasm of years
to translate for us a forgotten language
through voice and smile and tears.
For an afternoon grandchildren
felt what it was like to live
in the shadow of the Cathedral –
to stop everything
when the evening Angelus would ring.
Fishing Alone
A white plastic bobber
floats on the ponds surface.
A keen eye at the other end
of the nylon line squints from
sunrays bouncing off the surface
to see the bob as it’s pulled under.
Each Saturday morning, he sits
on this same cast iron bench
in his now ragged woolen sweater,
a cotton cap pulled down over his ears,
the old oak tree standing watch behind.
He faintly smiles as he remembers
his children dancing around the bench
making too much noise,
begging to go to the park to swing.
The oak tree is now his only companion—
A silent witness to an ageing face.
Each Saturday, the plastic bobber floats,
waiting to plunge down and break loose
to join the countless others
at the bottom of the pond.
The ripples on the surface are driven by a breeze,
not by life below—he knows better,
and waits for the real thing
to strike without warning,
to snap the line tight
and revive his heart, as if transported
to another time when as a boy
he fished the morning away.
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