overpeck preserve down and up

leonia midsummer eve

such sadness

Your thoughts and mine go there to him.
Our sadness grows deeper day by day.
It is the fourth week after the surgery.
And still he suffers in the hospital.

His vibrant life and dreams so suddenly taken.
Our hope of more good times to come in doubt.
His days and nights now filled with pain.
Indignity and humiliation his lot in life.

He asks you for mercy to put an end to this.
He has no strength or will to rebuild and resume.
Most days he refuses his food and medicine.
No way can he bear to end up in a nursing home.

I feel an ache inside my chest and in my neck.
And my shoulders and back hurt, too.
My feet are grieving from ankles and arches to toes.
He is depressed, despondent, down the hole.

You tell me every day how it's going.
There's seldom a shred of good news.
I am helpless to make things better.
I listen in sympathy while feeling distress.

We are about to move in together.
We have found a close to perfect place.
We were looking forwards to our first days there.
But now the dark cloud of despair fills the air.

We will recover. We are resilient.
A joyful noise will sound again in our lives
Walking under the grand old trees hearing the birds
Watching a gorgeous sunset on a summer eve.

totem pole

graduation ceremony

frog pond summer

ramapo ramble

edgewater overcast cell pix

the ordeal

The ordeal of Al Ayling goes on another day
Uncertain whether he will live or die.
Your hopes and fears ebb and flow in parallel
An emotional trial now in the second week.

I get phone calls twice a day, never knowing
Will I hear good news or bad.
If he doesn’t get better soon
We fear he’s going to get worse.

You flew to him so full of love.
You are such an empathetic person.
My heart goes out to him and you.
I try to be supportive.

You are doing whatever you can
To make him more comfortable
Washing his face with a washcloth
Gently rubbing the place next to his temple.

There’s such a physical distance between us now.
I’m writing this trying to be closer to you.
There’s a care package on its way to him
Bringing the violin music he loves.

Last night as we talked you had good news.
He doesn’t need more surgery, at least yet.
I heard his grandfather clock chiming on the hour
As you were sitting in his chair the first time ever.

When we visited there he stopped the clock
So the chimes would not disturb our sleep.
You are winding that clock now not letting it stop
As if the tick tock is keeping his heart going.

When I went and watered your plants back here
And took in your mail, I found the light left on
The beautiful lamp he made for you this year.
I left it turned on as if it's keeping him alive.

Yesterday he was saying good-bye to you
Wishing you happiness in your life with me.
Last night the doctor was promising him a future
Hiking around, enjoying more life.

Oh how I wish we have more time with him.
Oh how sweet the connection between you two.
Oh how I am longing to hold you in my arms
As if my embrace could make you feel better.

the answer

for Charlie

We are discussing the origin of the universe
Some billions of years ago
And the appearance of Lucy the Hominid
Some millions of years ago.

As if we can comprehend such a span of time
We humans who have existed
Some thousands of years now.
Truly it is astounding how much we know.

And yet what little we know
Compared to how much we don’t know
Like the brief moment of our lives
Compared to the immensity of the universe.

I point out that as many people are alive today
As all the people who have lived and died before us.
The modern world with all our inventions
Has become the majority human experience.

The discussion you started leads back around
When you were seventeen and thinking on everything
You thought and thought and decided
There’s no way you are going to find the answer.

I think how well that not knowing has served you
All these years into your eighties
You are still curious to know what is known
Even as you give yourself over to the mystery of it all.

laundry day living under the bridge

sudden death

Road kill images too gruesome to show
I see them riding my bike along the side of the road
All variety of wild animals and birds
Snuffed out in a moment of sudden death.

This is not a sports metaphor.
If you can’t bear to even hear about it
Don’t read on. You have been warned.
If you are thinking it is fresh meat you disgust me.

They are dead dead, soon decomposing
Stretched into two dimensions, hard to identify.
The snapping turtle caught my eye the other day
Trying to determine what creature got crushed there.

One moment I am riding along enjoying myself
Taking in the sweet smells that trigger memories
Hearing the birds calling, admiring the trees,
Minding the whirr behind me of tire rubber on asphalt.

When looking down I see a fresh carcass
Not the glimpse you see from a speeding car.
I see the blood and disemboweled guts.
I see the maggots then the skeleton picked clean.

Why don’t I look away? I suppose you do.
I see chipmunks and squirrels, deer and possum,
Raccoons and rabbits, a muskrat, bluejays.
Today I saw a young fox kit killed.

I saw it crossing the road as I approached.
I saw the SUV cruising along coming towards us.
I heard the thump and arrived to the spot
As the fox twitched and the blood ran from its mouth.

On the ride back the flies were already feeding
A bike ride like this is a psychic trauma
What we witness happens to us.
So alive one moment, quite dead the next.

I wonder if I may be clipped by some car going by
I remember the thump of the car killing the pedestrian
Years ago crossing 1st Avenue at 4th Street
You don’t forget these things.

I remember Ed Dougherty next to me on the picket line
37 years ago now, crushed under the tractor trailer
Lying in the road lifeless, chest split open
And now I take horrible pictures of road kill that I don’t show you.

wilkinson visit

robin song

That robin this June in the silver maple is so loud
Singing past mid morning now into the afternoon nonstop
Singing at 3 AM the other night like a mockingbird
I don’t remember this in years before.

I think robins sing around dawn and then again at dusk
Talking about the night and day changing
Or after the rain. I wonder is this something new
Or am I just noticing after a lifetime being deaf?

Heard above the traffic noise rising and falling
I listen to the cheeri-up, cheeri-up, cheeri-up tremolo.
Why is this bird sitting there singing and singing?
The ancients would interpret it as a sign.

I love everything alive in the world.
This year I see dinosaur footprints in the bird tracks.
For me this bird is sent to sing praises to all who will hear
Joy to the world for all the creatures in it.