B/W Photo With Young Dummy In Shop Window, Raymond, Washington, 1972

You might not see him 
At first but he’s there 

Alright—on the left— 
Wearing a striped 
Long-sleeved shirt 
And dark pants, looking 
Smart as a tack as he gazes 
North onto a long gray 
Street stretching south 
Under an endless canopy 
Of low gray clouds— 

Three cars are parked 
With their noses pointing 
North, too—it looks 
Like it’s early spring, 
For the lone 
Leafless sapling 
On the sidewalk shows 
Signs of coming 
To life again. 


NB:photo courtesy of Tom Mattson, Administrator for FB page "You Know You Grew Up In Raymond When. . ." for which I thank him.

Physical

My eighty-year old 
Mother-in-law, now 

Well past recalling 
Anything that transpires 

Over a minute after 
It flashes before her, 

And so 

Thin and frail you can see her 
Bones pressing against 

Her flimsy night- 
Gown still remains 

Sharp enough to tell 
The young 

Doctor feeling her 
Body for any 

Tell-tale signs of 
Imminent danger 

To go to hell the moment 
He brushes what now passes 

As her breasts. 

Transient Harvest Moon

The sky was ever so moving last night— 
A surfeit of broken, moonlit pie crusts, 
So I thought to hesitate a while, take

My fill of it, or if not all, as much as 
I could, when I heard a voice I swear 
Coming from the dark side of the moon:

“Move on, you light-headed fool, 
Indulge as you will, what makes you 
Think you’ll ever get your fill?” 

Outside A Railroad Station Coffeehouse Where Trains No Longer Run

Early autumn late afternoon 
In a light northerly breeze 
Under the centenarian 
Plane trees, we pass 
The time sipping 
Coffee and keeping 
An eye out 
For the next crumpled, 
Crablike leaf to fall 
And scuttle past us when 
Just across the other 
Side of the rusted derelict 
Tracks, we catch sight of 
The black-garbed village priest 
Slowly making his way, pushing 
His paraplegic son along. 

Practicing What You Preach

Yes, indeedy— 
No particular place to go was his motto 

And he always doubled back 
To where he’d started 

Particularly 
To make doubly sure 

He knew precisely where 
He wanted to go. 

Curmudgeon's Epitaph

Never a slacker, his life was marked 
By a stoic refusal to follow any lackluster tack, 
And steer that lonely, steady course he did— 

Till he found himself a haven where
No groveling lackey missed his absence,
And nothing ever lacked.

Out Of This World: 5th Century B.C. Attic White-Ground Lekythos

The Ancient Greeks used to think 
The soul was a moth, a small 
Bird or butterfly that escaped 
From the body once 
A mortal had left his mortal 
Existence behind; as such it was 
A favorite motif of many 
An Attic white-ground painter— 
Take this piece for example, 
Where we see the little winged one 
In question has just made his exit 
And is now perched upon the head 
Of the upright dearly departed 
Prior to taking off, presumably
To somewhere where no doubt it won’t be 
So easy for the artist to capture him again.