Frankie, the retired pilot, sits at my kitchen table and says,
“I was a dog; A real flyboy. I drank like a fish and cheated on my first wife.”I smile at him, uneasy with this odd confession; I hardly know him. I didn’t even know Cynthia was his second wife.
“Oh, yes, I was in the Air Force, lived in Europe for years. Put my wife through hell, God rest her soul.”
Funny, how easy it is to slip a person into a slot and never think they have a whole story, just like you.
I pour him some more coffee. We are just neighbors, sharing a meal while Cynthia is on a walking tour of England.
He’s easily the age of my father; I look at his worn face and wonder about the women who found him irresistible.
Category Archives: Poems
Spring comes
Spring comes
The grass grows
By itself
When I was growing up, one of my mom’s friends made little notes that were posted inside cabinet doors in our kitchen. The Zen-like poem above was one of them. It was accompanied by a little watercolor sketch of a tuft of grass.
Another of the notes read: “Stop worrying! It’s bad for your blood pressure!” which is just another way of saying the same thing. I don’t remember when these notes first appeared, but they became part of the kitchen landscape, along with the yellowing recipe cards tacked up inside the cabinet door where the baking supplies were stored.
Today spring comes. Nothing we did brought it; nothing we could do could stop it. Outside the scene is much the same as yesterday — a cold wind blowing a few dried leaves across the yard. But I know the warmth is coming.
The Day Is Done
Another week is winding down here at the world headquarters of Clark Communications Group. I hope the tongue-in-cheek flavor of that statement is coming through clearly.
It’s been a tough week. The young daughter of one of our employees is very ill and we have been heartsick about it. It’s been hard to focus on work, but I try to remember that the best way we can help our employee right now is to keep our business going so that we can continue to pay his salary for the duration.
Anyway, I’m feeling pretty low and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s maudlin poem “The Day Is Done” seems an appropriate antidote …
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.