Generations at Play - 7/31/10

Together in our living room
Boys playing magic the gathering
Faithful Scout sprawled on the floor
My wife reading in her favorite chair

Waning summer sun rosy on the horizon
Together we gather in relaxation
In anticipation for tomorrow
Tinkling sounds of music muted

Together we hum and tap our feet
We listen, play and read
Uplifting sounds transforming
Singing in unison so extraordinary

Together crafting our story
Just by passing the time.

A Whistle in the Night

Sitting in our bed with windows open
Sounds of crickets pulsating through
Sonourous frog calls echoing in the woods
Unceasing rhytym of the night

Barking dogs calling out
Screeching of brakes descending to a stop
Rumble of engines passing
Up and down Towne Hill Road

All of these surpassed every night at ten
Lonely clarion call of evening train
Echoing over verdant hills and valleys
Lately a less familiar sound

Once such a powerful force for change
Of country wide transformation
Today slips into the background
Fading out of daily life and story

While dull today this nightly sound pulsates
And powers our will to invent, to create
To transform our great nation
Reminding me of the power of innovation

Great ideas lie just around the bend
The embers of our collective genius awaits
Sounding every night through our window
Filling my heart with optimism

In giddy anticipation, wondering what will come.

Quotidian

Reading you old friend
Searching in you for old words, phrases and patterns
Anachronistic verbiage, amusing
Fallen out of usage, so unique

Somewhere in the letter R between Re and Ri
Eyes read through a definition, yet incomplete
Abruptly ending, no conclusion
Only to realize the words continue above
Lonely in the white space preceding

A moment realized, a typographer's trick
The need to condense, to abbreviate text
Packing in lines of words above and below
A quizzical moment passes
Recognition of an earlier time

Feeling the leading of the type
The art of composition unfolding
Conserving of paper and printing
No longer perplexed
My mind grows quiescent.

Dance Upstairs

Staring at your hand-painted letters
Your yellow arrow red and green strokes
Enframed in leopard wood
Voices and music emanate forth from various eras
Layering over one another
You used to point the way
To night time pleasures
Improving upon the fiery sounds
And terrors from earlier times

You started your life in a VFW hall
After your original dancers moved on
An unlikely school adopted you
Then after a while the school children left you
One day my muse found you
She picked you up

We gave you a new life
Using you one more night
Prominently displayed at our wedding reception
Now you've made the journey to Vermont
And grace our bedroom wall
I stare at you each night and day

Every once in a while the kitschy sounds of your past
Dean Martin's "That's Amore" ascending happily
Our song from the local pizzeria in Denver
From the Jukebox we played so many times
Wherever we go we'll take you
For the dance upstairs awaits.

Grandmother's Embrace 11-1-09

Pink bundle of joy curled up
Breathing peacefully on your shoulder

Generations together around a table
Pulsing coffee shop rhthyms surrounding

Anonymous together
Jabbering excitedly

A busy day of shopping
Helping hands lifting cold drinks

A momentary break in motion
Sleepy face stirring undercover

Mouth chomping  in dreamy reverie
A precious moment slips by

Doting eyes smile.

Waves

Wind blowing from the south
Energizes your every move
As does the passage of the moon

White crests curling
Splashing one after another
Some more than others

Causing squeals of delight
Chilren's screams dodging tennis balls
Disappearing in your sparkling coolness

Re-emerging with huge smiles
Hands clenching clumps of sand
Dissolving quickly in their hands

Laying on beach's edge
Face down on the wet sand
Listening and feeling your surges

Eternal rhythm calming
Clammy chill comforting
Transmitting to every pore

Lulling sounds engaging
So completely compelling
Falling into lethargic summertime trance

Knowing this time forever
Recalling its beauty
When the winds begin to blow

From the South in summer.

(Written on the shores of Lake Michigan July 20, 2010)

Pictures in Our Kitchen

My eyes wander over
Refrigerator stove and cupboards
Signs of a busy life plastered on the fridge
A young family on display

Picture of two boys
Sitting upon Santa's knees

Picture of us in wedding outfits
Toes on a Sandy Dune
Church Tower behind us
Hurricane dividing the beach from above

Scribbled beginning lines
Made by three year old fingers
Pinned under a magnet clip

A drawing made by you with eyes closed
Done when we were courting
Blessed outline of a teapot

Diagram of a Child's toolbox
Stuck behind the cookie jar
Between tiny baseball shirt

Red, blue, purple hand print
Upside down against the counter back splash
Between uncorked wine bottles and the enameled yellow stove
All of these images a momentary fragment of our lives
So seemingly trivial and mundane, yet so reminiscent

Together they tell a story
Made up of but a few

Pictures in a Kitchen