In the Drought

Bleached and weathered
rows of tattered stalks,
Crisp and golden from
endless sun and days.

Crows made lazy circles,
never dropping.
Never raising
against the azure sky.

So much waste
when your father died.
The world went dry
And cruel
Yet beautiful,
like a Burchfield scene.

We drove silent
through dusty fields.
Nothing ever seemed
the same again.

Epitaphs From the Cambridge Cemetery

Feelings Were Her One Misfortune
so it said,
somewhere next to the dog
who at least was
a Faithful Friend.

She Did What She Could
not that it was much
but what can you say -
one should not speak ill
of the dead
(just backhand them instead).

August

Talk meanders with the shifting breeze
and thoughts slip silently beneath the black,
unsettled ponds.


Early blossoms have decayed and
untended gardens have faded into lawns.
Mornings seem so clear while
each afternoon slumbers toward
long shadows.
Fireflies have given way to the crickets
incessant song.

A Brief Soliloquy

On restless nights crowded
with intermittent meditations
of early selves forgotten
and futures lost
in endless rounds of
jabber and digressions,
only then do I remember
my recent, post-dated sense
of resignation

News Clips

A boy age 8
was struck
by a trolley
while waiting
for a train.

A witness
remembered,
in her senile years
a red bandanna
around the boy's neck.

The driver,
heartbroken,
was detained
past supper
and retired within
a year.