Thanksgiving 2014 - Janet

Feathers - Lucille

It's really a pest

trying to feather your nest

when you favor duck down

and there's not much around.

Each feather has a slightly curved spine

which, for the birds, may be just fine.

But here, for me, is the dim view

when occasionally the quill pokes through

the material,

I don't find that feeling

quite so ethereal.

However, 

I'm still up on down.

Veteran Reflects - Dave

I look at a picture of an elderly man 

Standing in front of a mirror

In his underclothes

The man has the posture of age 

The image in the mirror is a young soldier

His uniform impeccable

His body at attention  

Awaiting inspection by a senior officer.

The elderly man smiles

Once he was proud to be in uniform

Though it was not his choice 

To be in the great war 

Called World War II

But he survived it

On his best days he forgets

The anguish for the loss of friends

The anxiety of the desire to be a hero 

Possibly to be rewarded by burial 

In a strange foreign land

On his best days he can forget the reality of battles

Even though every day 

He must confront this soldier smiling back at him

This younger self that knows the whole story

Even pages and chapters the elderly man tries to forget

The elderly man now ignores the soldier while he shaves

Shaving was a craft and a tradition 

Learned while he was a soldier

Donating his first whiskers to the US Army

Lest they be found in the inspections

And paid for with push-ups and KP

Picking up cigarette butts and scrubbing latrines

Even in battle he was expected to be groomed – and proud

A proud soldier is a better fighter 

His general knew

As he grooms himself 

He now thinks of Civilian life

The battles he fought after the great war

Notions of what-is-right stuck with him

Like a faithful soldier, 

He still fought for what was right

Even when it was not the way to be rewarded

Now retired and more relaxed 

He still applies pressure for what he thinks is right

And now he doesn’t have to worry about the consequences

– Like an immortal soldier 

But with fewer arrows.

Everyday the elderly man meets the young soldier

Though no one speaks

The uniform triggers a response

The elderly man replays a newsreel in his brain

That covers five years and replays in seconds

When he steps from the shower 

Again he sees his battle scars

A reminder of having escaped death

The enemies’ aim not quite good enough

In the moments before their own death

He tries to avoid these flash-backs

But the young soldier continues their repetition

Believing that as long as the elderly man 

Can bear  them this way

They will preserve a rational brain 

Needed in the present daily contest

Where rules and penalties 

Are different from war

Senior Moments - John Field

I was always a master                                                        

At forgetting my faults,                                                     

But where was my mind                                                    

When the kettle boiled dry?

And why is my neighbor’s last name

A ship in a bottle I can’t get out?

I’m growing old,

Each night dumber by another day,

My memory fading, a sight for closed eyes,

Missing in action almost as often

As lost luggage at a baggage roundabout.

Using my legs as a walker

Until they won’t anymore, picture me

Shuffling up and down hallways

Looking for the room where the answers

To whatever happens next are kept, 

And when I finally arrive there

Asking myself what was the word

I was searching for 

When I passed through that door

A moment ago? Has it shattered 

As if fallen from a great height

Or like a dog without a master

Taken off down an unlighted thoroughfare

In the middle of the night?

When I find it as I surely will before I die

Filed away in my information somewhere

Like a blade of grass in an acre of lawn

A whole Sunday of church bells will ring.

Until then let mornings, afternoons 

And evenings come and go as they please

Like broken fountains 

Denying parched mouths,

This way the dust, that way the smoke,

My thoughts as blank 

As the back of a photograph 

While I wait patiently for my piper to arrive 

With his magic pen and inscribe

The fugitive word on the tip of my tongue.

Believe me, at my age it’s not the present 

But the thought that counts.