Poems

Shane and Candice Wedding

Sunday, July 20th, 2025

Love and Marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage

That’s the old song from the play*
We used to sing back in the day,

Remembering an earlier time
When little farms and towns were prime,

Where couples met at church or dance
Familiar spots to find romance.

Since then, we switched our sense of place
The global village became the space

Where modern people first entwine
In the world-wide web, on screen, online.

But some old things remain the same
For our young Candice and her Shane

A community farm, a tie to the land
Co-workers and friends joined in a band,

And in this antique barn just now
The ancient rite of speaking their vow,

The words we witnessed that bind to last
Their lives, their families, their future and past.

A timeless moment, a rock to resist
Amidst the floods of change, to persist.

So, with love in marriage for 58 years
Sustained by that vow, I say, “Cheers!”

*

Apology

Tuesday, April 1st, 2025

Only a self truly can apologize

not the mess of organs cells and molecules,

that make it necessary.

I’m sorry to be sick again,

on our anniversary’s eve.

In its seventh day, the cold

I thought was on the run,

succumbing to defenders

in phlegmy piles of corpses,

has left me no less weak this sunny morning

than when it brought me down in wind and rain,

despite the shampoo, shave and change of clothes

I hoped would mean recovery.

The card I’d made to mark our harvest years

together with the close

of this prolonged ordeal

sits waiting in the drawer,

likely now to signify a date

for patience rather than a party.

Only a self truly can forgive

not a flow of passing feelings,

a solid self, forged once

and tempered all this time.

2025 Valentine

Friday, February 14th, 2025

At 5:00 o’clock I stop to cook the meal
Then put the plates and cutlery in place
Under the hanging lamp of glass and steel
With ceremonial care and stately pace

As if some honored guests were on the way
For an event most special and profound
Despite its happening every other day
With only two of us and dog around.

And so do you on nights that alternate
Call me to come out from my private lair
T’enjoy the dinner you’ve worked to create
In the common space we old ones share.

And sitting down we entwine eyes and hands
To celebrate routine, that love expands

 

Dog beach

Sunday, January 12th, 2025

Almost to the boardwalk this morning and rising
January’s high tide layers up rocks and wrack.
Each wave approaches
in flowing curves of foam
ablaze in the low sun
then withdraws
leaving a line of bubbles
to pop and sink in sand.
Back home I sink on the couch
awaiting my morning movement
another reanimation
after arising from bed,
from bathtub immersion,
from imbibing coffee.
Marilyn’s obituary in the news
Gone at 93.
Down South, the fires still spread.

Knoll House 2

Saturday, September 21st, 2024

Drink the air
Clear spring water

Float on silence
Forest bathing

 

Facing facts

Thursday, July 18th, 2024

I checked in with Peter after our return from Germany and his from Montreal with his granddaughter.  He reported that his several undiagnosed health conditions have him walking with a cane. He mentioned that he’s been thinking about King Lear these days. I was prompted to send him this poem by Johann von Goethe and my effort at translation

An old man is always a King Lear

Whoever embraced or grappled with you

Has long since taken off.

Whoever loved or suffered with you

Is busy elsewhere.

The young are here for themselves.

It would be stupid to protest.

Come on with me old fella.

 

April 2 2024

Sunday, April 7th, 2024
April 2 2024

Lionel Webb (1947-2020)

Monday, September 21st, 2020

Lionel, I think of you

as an old grizzly bear
all burly and tough
but also a teddy bear
full of cuddly stuff

or as my grandfather,
all seasoned and wise
but also my grandson
full of awe and surprise

 

Shelter at Home

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

[for our  53rd anniversary]

In the living room within these walls
Snug we sit on the softened sofa
And watch the dance of pixels on the screen
Replacing our extinguished hearth.

I recall the cozy chesterfield
Where we cuddled in front of the fire
While the storm roared in the hollow,
Our future but a threatening swirl.

Could we then have seen ahead
Our joy and comfort half a century hence,
Before the plague began to rage,
That moment might have lost its treasured worth

Like this perilous time’s, when every minute counts
When 25 million precious minutes since
Cannot be taken from us
By whatever now our future holds in store.

 

Albert Drive

Sunday, March 24th, 2019

The mockingbird returned
on Spring’s first day
filling the silence
left by students
gone on break.
Its bebop warbles
replaced their hiphop grunts
with a memory of hope.