A certain lean/elegance/the cuff presented just so/the two tone shoes/the hair parted/slicked/tamed with a stocking cap/the effort to live effortlessly/must have been exhausting/in the midst of/dehumanization/daily/the secret lost by generations/untold/they thought/I think we wouldn’t have to live this way

From the day of Kindergarten graduation/until the teacher herself/guarding the spirits of every tender soul/in her care/my main assignment in life/mirror reflecting love and awe/how she always knew/the delight of our hearts/never had her spirit crushed/and can deal with the toughest youth/looking for and finding the good/the great/the joy/she gives them roses/and calls the roll

Really good old fashioned oatmeal/that didn’t spill over/or burn/with a crust/you have to peel off the pan/nostalgia for Childhood/they rose early to prepare/a good morning for us/and now my good mourning/transforms the plain sweet oatmeal/adorned with how I have learned to care for myself/I do believe/they do approve

It won’t be long now/I have to fight depression as the days descend/they do you know/just as they did then/fierce summer heat abated/became the harbingers of that perfect blue sky/soon to be crisp almost autumn day/I wonder that we found our way forward/that I stood in pulpits in those days/when all the people/found comfort/it seems we are inured to the unthinkable/perhaps it began that/beautiful broken day

Being culturally of OZ/meant comprehending/secret codes/without instructions/Childhood lullabies/about distant Galway/wild colonial shores/the capture of admired/ desperadoes/the lilt of Ned Kelly/strains and dips I still hear/never having to ask why the corks were on the hats/having heard about the proverbial meat left out a short time/the blow flies laid eggs/in just a bit they hatched and grew/the meat went walkabout on its own/mostly I learned not to ask/for the far off sadness in her eyes/we didn’t ask/we just knew

Some days/coffee/flowers/good books/inoculate from/fear/death/sorrow/after a little escape/we face the day/serenely/we face the night/wide awake

How the light gets in/filtered by the myriad living leaves/shining joy into my soul/the thousands upon thousands/tiny lungs/bless this air/I pray thanksgiving/amazement/wonder/awe/the light and the shade/build a bower/for love

So many of our interactions/merely skim the surface of our lives/the window to our pain predicaments/our joy explosions/suffocates under layers of blinds/drapes/curtains/swags/valences/I want to live with the sight of this life/unobscured/thoughts of being naked/vulnerable/keep the shades down/but I would rather awaken to the green and golden light

So the road arose/in greeting/the really big sky/spread like a canopy overhead/full but wary/I engaged cruise control/signaled madly for every lane change/dining on songs from my youth/all the way home/singing/as the road lay before me/a smile crept onto my facial estate/that’s me grinning/laughing fear to hell/as I sashay along this Jericho road

Born in the middle/of the century gone by/I will be old and/perhaps/frail in the early twenties of this/yet to be written/era/distant horror/echoed for me/when I looked back on roaring years/depressed years/atrocities of /omission/and commission/I wonder now/ how children to be born/in the middle/ of this new century/will hear our echoes/what story our years will tell/