Monday, November 17, 2014

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.


Monday, November 10, 2014

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

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

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.