Regarding "Runners"

Mom says that Dad was electrified by this poem and told her that he thought it exemplified the best of her work.

RUNNERS

Two by two, in fellowship 

Backs wet with sweat,

And hair awry above the band

That aids the brow in keeping salty droplet from the eye…

You run along the highway

Dogged, building heart and muscle

To the task.

I ponder as I pass.

You were made to run the world

In search of game to feed yourself

And others.  Your bodies built for strength,

You marked out trails and found

The means to eat and sleep and safely

With another bring to life from seed,

Sons and daughters!

Who gave you such a role?

Where is the path now , as you run?

Oh, brave young men, it’s just begun.

A new world has grown across

This ancient globe.

The trails that told you once

What could be done

With nature’s pattern that unfolds

Within you from your first beginning

Have grown cold.

It is confusion now and clamor.

Information much like lotus leaf

Is touted, but it  leads to grief.

But run, there‘s strength within.

Where truth is hidden, it must  out!

Look in and listen,

For all our human foibles are the same

That history has seen in costume strange

To us; but still, new ways lead back

To old beginnings, where lies the trail

Well watered with the sweat and tears

Of centuries.  You have the feet to trod

The highway that leads back to God.

REFLECTION

Seeing lights lining darkened streets on rainy nights

Gives rise to expectations

Whose roots are lost in long ago homecomings.

Memories are blurred

As windshields swept by rain

Still stir the heart

With a childlike hope

That we will soon be there.

11/07/00

LATE SUMMER

There is still the scent of Aster

Clinging softly to my fingers,

Recalling to my mind, the morning walk

That brought me home

With flowers in my hand.

Stepping out into the big wide world

This week marked an important step.  Gerry submitted "Tis in the Blood" for consideration to Poetry Magazine.  We are hopeful that they will see it as essential to publish.  Some response should be back about mid-December.   Isn't that cool!

Tis in the Blood

Tis  in the blood, you know,

Seamen they were, long ago,

And built the ships that bore the sails,

Sent them down the ways

And when they tied them by the rope,

Around the capstan  went they  many times,

To hold that hull……

Around I pull, with muscle fed by DNA

(Tis in the blood they say)

And  pulling, stretch the  hose,

The bloody  hose laid out in sun

And left  to catch  a heel among the leaves;

Oh, must reel it in, not mind the wind,

Heave ho, it comes around again,

And laugh I, thinking of those men

Who worked on ships, and I on land.

Tis in the blood you understand.

GBP  10/17/07     (inspiration in a garden hose)

The One Page Short Story

It was cold and a little windy, but the temperature had moderated since Sunday.  Lottie was delighted to find the rubber ice on the puddles as she made her way home from school.   It promised to be dark soon, but it was delicious fun to traverse the puddles hearing the squeak of the rubbery ice and seeing the water moving beneath it.  The ice would give and never crack like the sheet ice on the puddles in the cold mornings.

She felt quite alone in the late afternoon light.  It was oddly pleasant to be so by herself.  She knew it was partly in anticipation of her mother's greeting, knowing she was close to home that added to her pleasure.   The stress of the school day had evaporated in the fresh air when the bell rang,  the doors opened,  and she and her schoolmates spilled out into the smoky afternoon.

She wasn't one to go play at a friend's house.  She was likely to aim for home like a bird coming back to its nest.  Home was warm and safe- though she  carried her fears with her even there.  Fear of the dark,   but not fear of the cold.  She loved the cold on her cheeks.  Even if her hands were cold,  it was a thing to be put up with- not a thing to be regretted.   

When she was smaller, it wasn't the cold that made her beg to come inside.  Her mother patiently bundled and booted the small figure,  hatted and mittened her and then sent her outside to play in the beautiful snow.  But she immediately cried to come in,  not because of the temperature but because of the dog.  The big police dog who bounded down the alley from the house next door was her nemesis then.

In later years she slept out on the screen porch long after her siblings had left for the warm beds upstairs and she never gave up until she awaked with snow on her blankets.   Then she moved in reluctantly.

She was dozing again, she knew.  The television chatter was interrupting her mother's voice welcoming her in the back door.  It washed out the sight of the afternoon snow and powdered trees,  and the rubber ice dissolved into the green carpeting beneath her slippered feet.

("I think I indicated that I'm fond of it myself--it is based on my own walk home from school on winter days--except for the ending, it is autobiographical--several years ago (can't remember how many) some magazine--maybe Good Housekeeping (strangely enough) featured one page short stories." )