Historic Tree – Do Not Climb

the sign said, not
… enjoy its shade by the busy road
… touch the barky edge of its life and seasons
… feel the gnarly strength of its limbs
… remember the stories of its wooden rings
… take a dropped leaf for your box of treasures.

The sign was a prohibition
by caretakers preserving
its history, quarantining
its life. Fathers and mothers
of the caretakers imagined
its limbs the prow
of a ship, a trapeze
for swinging, a lap
for reading, but
they now reside in life-care
communities where
no one comes to climb.

Lynne

Celebrate at sixty-five –
youth, career and kids survived,
BCG, two husbands past,
braless through the sixties blast,
antsy at a southern prom,
proud success as Katy’s mom.

You bathed your bones in rapid rivers,
climbed to where the eagle quivers,
rode your bike with strength and speed
so no one calls you knobby-kneed,
on and on, your brain still edits
strategy and carbon credits.

You picked a man informed and ready
to be your partner, keep you steady,
opened up your Lincoln house,
opened up your Lincoln spouse,
Viagra, K-Y, estrogen,
chemical coitus, one big grin.

You found the opportunity
to build a new community,
old chums too, you’ve kept in touch
with those who shared with you so much,
and earned a deep felt loyalty
from us whose friend you’ll always be.


Yes, life you challenged one-on-one
sometimes lost, sometimes won,
but now your aching body veers
closer to the Advil years.
Not yet, you shout, your clenched jaw set,
I’ve more to do, I ain’t dead yet.

Shrine

Beach pieces,
seawall assembly,
low tide footprints,
deer, dogs, disbelievers,
shelter from some tides, wind,
modest monumental bequests,
requests for safety, health
by unsure parents
adopting anyway
bits of shells,
feathers,
stones.

Unresolved

Jackhammer, smartest, whiz, IBM
machine on legs, applauded
by Senators, Presidents, me.

An acolyte, ambiguous
about our mission, I wanted
hard-eyed insight, wire-
rimmed command,
rationality – emotion no
substitute for reason.
Just five months after
I arrived, you left me
to discover what you knew already.

When you knew and didn’t say –
was it loyalty? The unified front?
Influencing from the inside?
Did you hope digging deeper,
one final jackhammer
would break through?
Fired,
did you wince with terrible
irony when the tunnels spewed
their wrath on us?

That’s when I began to get it,
our losing.
Doubting,
I stayed, my analyses
piling up – spending higher,
backpacked supplies unstoppable,
database filling with bodies.

Much later, in remembrance,
you said we got it wrong,
terribly wrong.
You probed for lessons which
I studied wondering
if eleven lessons
were enough?

I think
you were not a computer.
No machine weeps
into office curtains, walks disheveled
past the posts of power, loves
the son who protests
his dad’s war.

Still
our faces reflect
on that dark wall.

Married

They walk briskly,
every day, early,
on the side of the road facing traffic.

She wears a soft pink shirt, tan shorts.
He wears a floppy hat, faded pants, shirt with long sleeves.

Their children have children.
Both wear glasses,
Neither hears very well.

They talk –
what do they say after a lifetime?

They don’t hold hands,
but their steps match
perfectly.

Secrets

Soft and relaxed in the afternoon sun
They’re wrapped in each other, quiet and done.
The hot twisting action, entwining and wet
Has run through its cycle, the sensors reset.
Tumbling no longer unsettles their form,
As they lie in the sunlight, breezy and warm.
Do they remember their tight fitting fashion,
The bulging and tugging of previous passion?
Or, are they content in their soft cotton folds
With elastic forgotten as it’s gotten old?
Much like the old lovers, the fresh wash remains
Still warm with the secrets of Victoria and Haines.

Retirement

Today presents
an uncomfortable gift,
of disorientation and discovery,

unwrapping
to the horizon
or maybe not so far,

inviting
what I will be
from what I’ve been,

distinguishing
what I do
from who I am,
unfinished

Recycle

Use these words in a poem …white boy …badger …caulking gun …crow-pecked …extra belt holes

Crow-pecked words return to litter,
ignored by probing badgers.
An old caulking gun rusts
with broken hyphens.
Empty bags rustle
discarded titles.
Dinner’s excess stains
crumpled edits.
The old white boy with extra belt holes,
scavenges for metaphors.

Opera Lover

Her singing stilled the listening hall –
low note pools to drown in,
high notes like perfume.

She sang about her little things –
moonlight, springtime, dreams –
which she called poetry.

But when, alight, her chest had swelled
to sing about her love,
the others slipped away.

Her sweet seduction was for me
a long denied embrace,
it filled an ancient ache.

The tenor sang his duet notes,
held her, kissed her lips,
but did not win her voice.

With laughter and some hoarded tears,
an aria that glistened,
she shared her songful story.

Too great a gift, these secret lines
unwove some vital thread,
connecting heart and voice.

Though springtime’s warmth had finally come,
she coughed a bitter note,
tubercular and wrong.
With lungless breath, she whisper sang
her parched reprise of love,
a heart-slow final song.

The last sound was her soul escaping.
lingering, finally free,
it rose respectfully.

The missing listeners emerged,
chased her circling essence,
pursued it with applause.

Silent, I knew she had died
singing just for me,
and in the dark, I cried.

Moore's Law

Sand grains through an hourglass,
Gordon saw the silicon shrink;
he and Andy made it so.
Chip power doubles, eighteen months,
smaller, faster, cheaper.
Upside down, begin again,
smaller, faster, cheaper.
Data googols, micro gadgets,
phonewebpicturestuneslocation,
budding ears, prehensile thumbs,
find your missing dog or cat,
virus, spam and phishing too.
BTW MTF,
Attention’s even microsized.

Midnight on the Other Side of the Bed

Write a poem in the voice of the other gender

I’m hot.

Not the toney body hot
that makes you want to shake your booty,
though I have danced.

Not the humid erotic hot
that you feel in your nipples,
though I have loved.

But the midnight hot
when I throw off the covers
and measure minutes long.

My grown children keep their own time now;
there are no urgent cries in the night,
there won’t be others.

Some memories make a refuge where I can
let the bad dreams go. I can
make the clock tick comfortably.

Freed from hormonal puppet strings, I can
rise to my own future. I can
make friends important, even men.

Morning will bring fiber cereal,
supplements and stretching,
the sweat will cool at the back of my neck.

Kathy

Birthdays mark change more than days in some years
a growing, becoming, relief from some fears,
like birth or new sheets or beginning a trip
when the past lags behind and loosens its grip.
The tingle of what isn’t known and might be
exciting and scary, this uncertainty.
Kids, husband, dog gone and house up for sale,
new home constructing, new trips in the mail.
Has all of this happened at once at this time
A quick disconnect at this point in your prime?
Or have you been working to get yourself free
on birthdays when progress was harder to see?
Paths are much clearer when viewed in the past
compared to the future unknown and so vast.
But that’s why friends help on this yearly occasion
of stocktaking, sharing and some celebration.

Hand Written

arrows, cross outs, inserts –
the natural text of my frantic
fingers and blocked stops.
Poems resist my keyboard. Orderly
black words on white pages miss
the love making of
passion
and subtraction,
contractions
of word-birth,
struggles
of a poem
to breathe.
Careful fonts, even spacing, perfectly
straight lines make glossy stills, but
hide the messy mouthing
of poems emerging
like well-chewed dog toys.
Poems are never finished. Typed and clean,
they are merely dressed for church
after shameless Saturday nights.

On Rafting the Grand Canyon

From Switzerland, also the land of the Queen,
From Maui to Boston and lives in between,
We gather like babes in the womb of the earth
Immersing ourselves in the gap in her girth.
Each turn we descend makes us ever more small,
‘Til embryos just on the great mother’s wall.
Callus-like sediment covers her skin
And hard rock below from her great heat within.
Shedding our cell phones and lives clean and dry
We’re absorbed in the river and cliff-focused sky.
We’re humbled and tumbled as she works to deliver
Our small group of souls down her life-giving river.
Where did we come from, how were we conceived?
Our lifetime seems puny, so little perceived
Of the billion year history she bares for our view;
It jumbles perceptions, starts thinking anew.
We cannot ignore our own unconformity –
Our existence so brief in earth-time enormity.
At the end, we’re delivered, wet and shivering like birth,
We twenty-three brothers and sisters of earth.

On Biking From Bryce to Zion

From cities in Eire and across the US
We gathered to join in a southwestern quest.
Old marrieds, just marrieds, and some just plain friends
Responded to all those brochures Backroads sends.
A few had worked out in a diligent way
Preparing to bike that eighty mile day,
While others prayed the “down hill” to Zion
Would be sufficient to keep their wheels flying.
We met in the shade of the Ute Crystal Inn
And checked out each other before our first spin –
How strong are his legs, how good are her lungs,
Are they really determined, their spirits – how young?
First, Jeanie and Gene – damn they look buff,
Then Randy and Bruce who have worked out enough.
From Middletown, Long Beach, Frisco, State Hill
Four trip-ready women prepared for this drill.
There’s Rick and his wife, a biker named Bobby,
Who look like they’ve never even tried a soft hobby!
The long-legged Siofra and her new man named Scott
Look like they’ve worked out together a lot.
Trina and Erin are guides in command
And Matt looks quite strong with his stubble and tan.
Oh dear, I don’t want it said on the wagon,
“It’s time to collect old laggin McLagan.”
But once we got going and the route rap was held
We shared M&Ms and our group quickly jelled.
The picnics and dinners and treats at the top
Kept all of us moving and not grumbling a lot.
The days went by quickly and now they are past,
One final ride, and a dinner came last.
It worked out quite nicely because, in the end,
Through bike and hiking, we’ve all become friends.

For Sale

Buyers, drink the courage cup,
Bankers, loose your purse strings up.
If you buy this house of mine,
A piece of heaven will be thine.

Flying

There used to be romance in flying,
the friendly skies had seats worth buying.
To get away, what could be better
than take-off as a cool jet-setter?

We used to find our liberation
in a Super Constellation.
Later came the first class heaven
upstairs in a seven-four-seven.

There was a time of flying grace
when you could stretch in your leg space,
no need to beg the prior row, “Please,
tilt back gently, save my knees.”

Once air line brought some pride to mind
and not the throngs you wait behind
to check your tickets and I.D.,
standing shoeless for security.

Now, bankrupt, merged, de-regulated,
union and fuel cost inflated,
Pan Am, Eastern, TWA
no longer wing the skies today.

No, flying’s not what it used to be –
romance is now banality.
What once inspired anticipation
has now become just transportation.

Distracted

Sudden shadows lift
my eyes to birds’
eyes, the sea engages,
a poem begins, your legs
summer strong seduce. I
throw the dog’s ball.

Distracted from hunting
sea glass, I forget
to focus
on the amber,
white, green
detritus of other lives.

Since buying the antique jar,
our beach walks have
purpose, progress, success.

What will happen when it’s full –
that antique jar? Will we
be happy, complete? Will we
divorce, die, disappear?

What a distracting metaphor, life,
when you’re looking
for sea glass.

Decision

You can’t stand in the doorway, pup,
please quickly make your dog’s mind up.
Your state of immobility
may work for you, but not for me.
For while you wait and vacillate,
mosquito minds just concentrate
on what will be their great delight
to be inside at night to bite.
But you don’t care, ambiguous cur,
because you’re covered up with fur.
The time has come to conquer doubt
and make your choice for in or out.

Conversation

Empty now, chairs still circle
where afternoon voices flowed
with the chocolate conversation
of old friends.
A gap remains
where the too-bright sun set,
and no one could look at it directly,
like conversation about the lost child.
Chairs need rightful places,
the gap will disappear
then. Not yet,
what was said, lingers
in the leaves and morning dew.

Approach

Beyond fir cones, waving pines,
yellow grey clouds rain,
thunder threatens,
breeze and sun retreat.

On the path, I hesitate
anticipating the storm’s breath.
The clouds have not arrived,
but drops already swell the stream.
Bangers on a suddenly narrow sidewalk,
they rumble, proclaiming their turf
where now I am an uncomfortable stranger.

The wind shifts,
the yellow grey arrives,
glances,
passes.

The air is clear,
cool now, but
under the pack,
my back
sweats.

Beach Stone

It was warm in my hand – the flat stone from the beach
Had drawn my attention, invited my reach.

It wasn’t attractive, not sparkling or bright,
Just grey on the sand among shells wet and white.

Did its wave-skipping surface or Vineyard like shape
Catch my eye, make me bend to this piece of Cape?

Its warmth was surprising, like soul in the stone,
Giving comfort, assurance I wasn’t alone.

So together we walked up the beach hand in hand,
My steps washed away by the waves on the sand.

Without quite deciding, my walk at an end,
I put in a pocket my quiet grey friend.

For years now it’s lain by the light at my bed
Where I’d notice it sometimes at night as I read.

And now on occasion, I reach out to clasp,
Not warm but remembered, the feel of its grasp.

Writing Classes

I’ve signed up for some writing classes,
With literary lads and lasses.
I hope my humble rhyming passes
The test of good and what the trash is.

Wise Teacher

The wise teacher
Hears the sound of the soul
Even in the voice of the coarsest crow.

Where's Neptune

Jet-skis make annoying noise
That blows in from the harbor boys.
With ample arm and pulsing peck
They jump the waves with sprouts erect.
Their testy youth’s a challenge bold
To me who watches feeling old.
Where’s Neptune with his mighty triton
To take offense and smartly smite them?

Water Color

In the earliest morning, just after the dark,
When the pond forms were fuzzy and the trees hard to mark,
A moment invited me into the scene
By painting me into my vision’s own arc.

The pale pond and sky shared the space in between
With sea grass and trees in a fog-blend of green.
The notions of motion and time lost from mind
Suspended by rose light too soft to be seen.

Not quiet, yet peaceful, this landscape entwined
The flyways where birds sang the songs long refined,
And liquid air summoned sounds it could achieve
Through drops of dew drumming a beat of some kind.

When I was a boy, I had tried to conceive
How big is the sky past the stars we perceive?
And what is its tiniest part that’s discrete?
And where do I fit in? And what to believe?

This live water color so full seemed to treat
All questions as moot, academic conceit.
With a presence sufficient, just after the dark,
In that moment of morning, it all seemed complete.

Visitor

Autumn announced herself last night,
Not to stay, yet,
Just a preliminary visit,
A kind of readiness inspection.

Her winds blew in from the north
Clearing the sky of its foggy warmth,
Bringing the scent of sharpened pencils,
And scattering the poems on the porch.

It’s August and Autumn is just a visitor,
A balancing obligation
For Indian Summer visits to fall.

There is still time
For a few more sails
And fresh tomato picnics.

Denial will do until Labor Day.

Sundress

Forgive my poet’s eyes from gazing,
They simply find your poems amazing.

Out

Mantle, Berra, Whitey Ford
Were baseball players I adored.
At ten, I dreamed their throws and hits
Could be mine too and I’d pound my mitt.

We picked up games in the old coal yard
The field was rough and diamond hard.
The guys I played with were the same –
They played a tough and gritty game.

My head was filled when up at bat.
With all my heroes’ hitting stats.
It’s not surprising consequently
That I struck out quite frequently.

And neither was my defense great –
The balls went past, the throws were late.
With gifts of neither power nor speed,
On some days I stayed home to read.

When it was time to pick the teams
We used a democratic means.
The bat was tossed and hands were stacked
To see which teammates captains backed.

Jonsey … Peter … Michael … Joe …
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
I did the math, I always knew,
That, out goes Y … O … U.

Ode to the Poet

By Dick Rafoth

He sits in the quiet of the morning
On the porch, dew dripping – his place.
The northerly has died.
The fog has taken its place – three poles, then nothingness,
Waiting for the words,
A few thoughts, random.
A line begins to form.
It will come – on its own terms.
Now the fourth pole appears, the osprey calls,
The day is awakening.
Time to get the paper.

Instead

I should have said, “How right you are” –
As I biked across the moving car.
The driver shouted, “Smart move, Dude.”
But instead, I motioned clear but crude.

Foggy

The fog confuses me.
Its disorienting distances
Make me feel
Alone.

Colors dissolve like pigments in a puddle.
The grey hidden places outside whisper
To the grey areas I have hidden within me.
It’s hard to distinguish image from imagination.

The air and water couple in the harbor and its sky
And in me too, I suppose.

Liquid pinpricks resist,
And invite me.

Voices are the flat monotones
Of people at night in another room.

The wet flag clings, like a sheer miniskirt,
To its long-legged pole.

It’s wet and fecund, seductive and scary.

This is tricky territory.

Encounter

With racing feet, the chipmunk materializes
Soundlessly on the deck.

She skids to a frozen
Stop,
Startled to find another
Presence on the porch.

On she scrambles guiltily,
Like a guest caught reading
The rough draft of my poem.

In the sun, the dog sleeps,
Comfortably ignorant
Of both the encounter
And the poem.

Dinnertime

Our dinners weren’t much to celebrate
Mom made the meal and we all ate.
And afterwards, at Mom’s clear wishes,
We two kids would wash the dishes.
The meals were nothing like gourmet,
Just nourishment to end the day.
What made the meals remarkable
Was all day long, my Mom taught school,
And kept the checkbook, and the house,
And sang in churches North and South,
And all of this activity
Consumed her time, instead of me.

Choices

For years, I wove a tapestry
Of data and technology,
A network threaded carefully
With software, sales and smart VCs.

The days began before the sun
And daily meetings had begun.
Though early hours were always shunned,
The dev team made the software run.

We pushed the edge of innovation,
Weaving luck, imagination
Into clever applications
And successful operations.

But … there was a time, important to me,
When oration, words and poetry
Were loved for what they just could be
Before we parsed them digitally.

One day when I was just eighteen,
I had to make a choice between
The seductive, sexy info scene
And what had been my poet’s dream.

I said good-bye to Whitman, Yeats
And Frost and other wordy greats.
Instead, I joined with Jobs and Gates
To seek some more pragmatic mates.

It’s turned out well – great things occurred.
But now it’s time for what’s deferred,
To give a voice to phrase and word
And let the sounds of soul be heard.

Chappy Ferry

The cars go by in groups of three
Because on Chappaquiddick, you see,
That’s all that fit on our ferry.

Can We Agree on What a Poem Is?

What makes a poem, I’d like to know,
When poems can dress in rhyme and meter
Or flaunt a naked formlessness?

So,
Is a poem …
A perfectly rounded single thought,
An image elegantly drawn,
An emotion coaxed from hiding?

Does e is mc2 make Einstein a poet?
Are Rembrandt oils epic poems,
And Verdi operas elegies?

Words! Can we agree that poems must
Think and paint, evoke with words?

Shakespeare’s sonnets,
Nash’s ditties,
Eliot’s erudite musings,
Carroll’s nonsense,
Cummings cantos,
Silly Seuss delights.

Different, oh so different, but
Poems – each word poems – yes?

So why not verses:
“Good Night Moon,”
“Lolita,” and
“The Gettysburg Address?”

Or will we, like Justice Stewart, judge,
“I’ll know it when I see it,”
And in the end, find poetry’s just
The good twin of obscenity?

For now, I’ll read my Whitman, Yeats,
And newer poets who sing to me,
And give my poems voice like theirs
Until my verses sing for me.

Bike Path

The asphalt tablet speckled grey
Invites a word-wheel interplay.
This biking, riding, writing place
Evokes a spoke and spoken grace.

By Morning Glory’s farms and fields
Of future salads, pies and meals
The path begins its tary tour
That ends up west at Alley’s store.

Like rhymes before there’s poetry
My dancing shadow beckons me
To see what’s on the path ahead
And watch what gestates in my head.

Through inkwells where the dew has dripped,
The path invites my wheely script,
Extending through the pitch pine trees
With pollen puffed by the biking breeze.

The curving, coasting, contours spin
Like soft shapes in a woman’s skin
And out and in and sense and mind
Are, on this bike path, all combined.

How briefly touched and slight the feel
Of what was real beneath my wheel,
But rich the image, strong the sense
Recalled from this experience.