one can find new friends anywhere anytime

 

he invited me to sit next to him

he said that the empty seat on the CTA train was waiting for me to arrive

so we talked of such things, of Mount Trashmore where I recalled the 

rope tow that burned my small hands, the cold and snow on the hill made

of trash, the man sitting behind us was also amazed that such a 

thing had existed, finally shut down due to liability concerns

we can't have fun anymore - is that it

and we looked for the Forest Preserve, and on the bus,

yes, he took me to where I needed to get the bus to Kenmore 

and there, crammed into the crowded seats, we talked about James Webb

we talked of such things, crazy things, like the coefficient of thermal expansion

of the struts, and when his hand grasped mine in farewell, I did not

know if we would see each other again, but there is no doubt that

one can find new friends anywhere and anytime, on a bus,

on a train, in a car, on a plane, anywhere.  

The submission that wasn't

Yes, I worked on that one poem, ABCs, so many revisions, 

visits with the poetry coach, obsession, suffering

so much that, in the end, I killed it, the spirit gone in 

the rereading, I couldn't stand the poem anymore

I threw it in the waste bin of the mind and selected 

the other one, the one written on the 6th floor of the hotel

the one that wrote itself with pen and paper, delivered

itself to the clerk and I walked out on it, left it to 

drift, unmolested, untouched, no revisions, no edits

I submitted it to the contest, the one and only one that 

I had committed to, the last one, my poems are not meant

to be caged with the editor, we need to be free. 

 

Good-bye and farewell to the best dog ever, Bella

 

So many tears, sobbing, I'll admit, for her, for

Bella, our Bella  who was no ordinary dog, she's the 

One who captured the heart of a little girl named Mira, the

One who said that Bella was the only dog she ever loved,

Bella was that dog, the one who loved every visitor,

who loved to go to camp when parents were away, she was the

One that called up the word Sweet on everyone's tongue,

Sweet Bella, who rolled delightedly in grass, her long thin

legs batting the air with abandon, the dog who pounced like

a fox at the edge of the trail, retrieving unsuspecting mice.

and eating them in front of myriad hikers passing by.

She woke us in the morning with the clicking of her nails

on these old wooden floors that have seen it all these last 140 years.  

Oh, Bella!  I miss you more than I could ever have known

Yes, the one who wasn't the dog lover in the family, but who loved

you more deeply than I could have realized until it was 

time to let you go, to release you from suffering.

Bella, I will hold you in my heart forever. 

Nothing to See Here

I had to get this book out of my house,

yes, the best seller, NYT amazing book, they told me so.

yes, the book that was on the Staff Picks at NoBo library

that I grabbed because it was about children that spontaneously combust

and although the ones in Baltimore did not literally start on fire, smothering

them to stop the screaming did occasionally occur to me, but please never tell them.

the library was closed but the door to automatic conveyer belt obediently opened

soothing my beating heart and the book slide silently out of sight and mind

I have too much on my mind as it is

 

Where the wealthy live

 

there is no connection here

just to the left are the big houses, mansions really, part of a big city

Baltimore

I was talking to a friend when he said he couldn't hear me anymore, here in

Baltimore

where just to the left, at that moment, was a three story yellow duplex

but there was no sound and I saw on my phone that he had disappeared 

we did not hear each other anymore, here in

Baltimore

this grand city with sky scrapers and busy streets, the hustle of people going 

about their business, some panhandling, others striding purposefully, here in 

Baltimore

a few miles away there is no connection, the line goes dead, even the 

path is quiet, my footsteps swallowed in the deep mulch along the path, here in 

Baltimore.  

 

The Gardener

he was building the garden when i last visited

piles of lumber,  the garden beds outlined in chalk and 

taut lines of string, the cement mixer off to the side for

the required garden shed

he needs it all to be properly set out 

properly done, only then will the seeds know that

it is time, the seriousness of it all, the expectations of

success, this is how it is done

and so

and so, a couple years later, or was it 18 months or

something like that i came back to this place, to his 

garden, not hers, no, his garden, his masterpiece, and the

seeds knew to germinate, and the plants to push up through

well composted soils, towards the sun, protected from

all manners of hopping and jumping beasts, from the aerial

assaults of small insects, the slimy advances of the other

living creatures who seek to feast at a table of such

bounty, just as i arrived as well to gobble down sweet

cherry tomatoes, the last of the season after such a summer

of heat and blazing sun.

what a lovely moment to snap a photo of him

smiling in front of towering pepper plants loaded

with the fruits of gardening, always a

labor of love.