ZEN AGAIN
Before enlightenment
chop wood haul water
After enlightenment
the body still grows old
More water must be hauled
– hydration is important
More wood will be needed
the cold wants to be your lover
worm its way
into your
ever more porous bones
Write about it
as fast as you can
before your stories fall into the holes
PLAYING OLD 78s AT THE NURSING HOME
Aunt Myrtle
skips a groove from time to time
The needle, still diamond sharp
plays 1952 for a round or two
Then the niceness of the people here
grandpa’s bad temper, and the size
of the long kitchen at the farm
The sweetness of her husband
sometimes here and sometimes gone
and where is he now?
Reminded that he died some years ago
with quick humor still intact, replies
That would explain why he never comes to visit
SPRING IN SASKATCHEWAN
In the city
retired farmers still watch the weather
In greening front yards
wooden ducks nailed to white posts
wings spinning backward
LAYING DOWN TOOLS
All’s hammers now
finer tools
one by one laid by
and every day
more nails
half hit and bent
and every blow
that much farther
from the mark
AN OLD RECIPE
When the getting into of drawers
while still a great pleasure
has ceased to be
an obsession
There still remains
(perhaps the best)
The loving spoon
and the cupping
of a breast
THE SAME AGE
Grateful now to be
the same age as Satchel Paige
neither one knowing
DEAD DOG WAKING
My muscles were turning to bone
as my bones had turned to stone
I still could walk
though less each year
from place to place
from house to house
from car to bar
bar to car
Or sometimes
with a special you
to view a special view
But there was no pleasure
in the walk itself
Nor had their been
as I recall
since the age of five
when my dog was still alive
and we would roam the ranch
from dawn to stealthing dark
with spring in both our steps
And then
just as I was about
to fall into winter
Emilie Conrad came along
That serpentinian septuagenarian
that Guru of fluid and flow
high priestess of Continuum
breath, movement, and sound
bringing into awareness
the waves under the patterns
Teaching the embracing
of possibilities in bodies
as Hal and Sidra Stone
teach embracing of selves
Reminding
how much of us is water
and the fluid capability
of systems to transform
This story isn’t over yet
but there is a new lightness
at the end of the tunnel
PATRICIA FISKE’S BIRTHDAY POEM
Thirty thousand times
the earth has spun
And eighty times
Around the sun
Sometimes the sun burns you
Sometimes you burn the sun
LOST AT SEA
Uncles, aunts, old friends and more
all sinking below the metaphor
on the way to that distant shore
The keel hauling of cancer
Walking Gehrig’s plank with ALS
Hanging from the yardarm
of emphysema’s choking rope
The lightning stroke of stroke
The sudden iceberg of heart attack
The slow arctic crush of hoary old age
Or slowly sailing, deeper and deeper
into Alzheimers’ fog bound banks
There are a thousand ways
to get back to the launching line
I’m not sure I’m ready yet
to speculate on mine
THE OLD WILDCATTER
Sad as a West Texas duster
he sits on a cracked vinyl stool
Remains of youth and charm
slip through a dry-hole smile
Still drilling from habit
the wild lands of women
Still praying for gushers