THOUGHTS
ON
A DEBBIE MOMENT
Debbie, a great friend of mine, died too young
and in too much pain in Houston about five
years ago now
This moment just sneaked up on me
earlier this year
Can’t help wondering how many people
are having Debbie moments now in New
York and around the world from what
happened just six weeks ago
How many people in the world in the last
five years having Debbie moments from
a hole blown in their sky
COFFEE HOUSE HOUSTON
Sitting outside around the round table
Dallas and Buda and the boys
coffee cigarettes and stories
Inside of each, tables within tables
other Budas, other Dallas
votes being taken and taken again
A clear enough majority
though far from unanimous
Texas sunshine helped the swing
Fine then, another cigarette
another coffee – one more story
nobody’s in a hurry ‘round here
ROBIN
Robin is a pelican
she flies with perfect grace
swims with perfect grace
moves with perfect grace
Pelicans swim with Robin as a sister
pelicans are very old and wise
they know a pelican
can be a beautiful woman
Humans are not so wise
but there is a way to know
if a beautiful woman is a pelican
Robin is a pelican
when she opens to feed you
you can taste her heart
MARHESHA’S DREAM
She opens a door
into a huge domed stadium filled with men
women and children, in costumes of all the ages
She knows that they are all there for her
to set up any drama at any time
to learn any lesson she needs to learn
She closes the door
and walks down the corridor
Another door to a storage closet
Inside big barrels labeled
“PLOT THICKENER”
FOR DEBBIE AND DAD
– by Carolyn Meili
As America reeled
in its new found vulnerability
Its myths exploding over and over
on wide-screen TV
You found a friend
perhaps the only one I have ever seen
who demanded your best
but not your sympathy
Now, in her absence
we discover our own vulnerability
and the strength in it
I watched the moon tonight
and she is full
Beaming among us
(written by my daughter Carolyn Meili, who met Debbie a week before Debbie’s death. Said she had never made and lost a friend so fast)
JUDY
Judy was a beauty
tall and blonde and shy
early this month she decided to die
The soft wise eyes, the curling lashes
all now ashes
We have been friends for twenty years
hugs and coffee when in town, cards when far away
And always the latest poetry
She said it was important, and it touched her
in places nothing and no one else could reach
Three years ago
I put my neck in a green eyed noose
I sent no cards, I did not call
I do not know if I could have saved her
though touch and poetry have been known to
I only know I hate what I did and didn’t do
I only know that she drowned out there alone
I only know it was a long time since I had thrown her a line
HILLMAN
A shadow on the wall in Hiroshima
ashes on a lake in Austin
Donna looks over the side of the boat
and cries as they drift
because she cannot see his face in the ashes
She might also have looked
for 81 years from China Sea to here
for the feet of the best dancer she ever knew
the graceful movements of Tai Chi
the hands of massage
and the mind and heart of a poet
The ashes drift to the banks and bottom of Lake
Austin
All that remains are the shadows on our minds and
hearts
And the walls of Hiroshima
THE TWINKLE
(Eulogy at Father’s funeral)
There is a thing about light
no matter where it starts it never stops
even if it takes a million years
to get from the twinkling stars to here
There was a twinkle in the eyes of this man
A twinkle of innocent mischief and inner joy
greeting every man and woman
every girl and boy
When you saw it you knew that he liked you
and never doubted that you’d like him too
AND HE WAS RIGHT
Because there is a thing about light
A million years from now
and no one knows how far
they will see it on some star
DAD AND ROY
Dad and Roy were the best of friends
they drank and fought and played
and laughed like nobody laughed
for fifty years and more
Dad had a room in the nursing home
way down at the end of the hall
when Roy was admitted as well
a nurse wheeled him down that hall
They sat footrest to footrest a minute
then Roy said “So it’s come to this”
and they both had a hell of a laugh
Dad died in late December
Roy lasted three months more
They are buried twenty feet apart
in the prairie town where they played
I can see them there now
sitting on their shiny new stones
having a smoke and a chew
and a good pull on a forty of rye
Roy says “So it’s come to this”
and they both have a hell of a laugh
A NEW WORD
We need a new word
A word for how you feel about someone
that you want to hang around with all of the time
I mean really want to be with every night and day
A word for that feeling that makes your heart sing
every time you see them
Causes a warm smile to rise every time you think of
them
Love doesn’t quite do it anymore
it has been battered and bruised and bled too often
A word for that feeling that where you meet them is
in a land of
acceptance, filled with air so light that fear cannot
breathe it
Friend won’t do, even though
friends are people you can count on, and who can count on
you,
And brother this and brother that, or sister this and
sister that are now used by people who have nothing
more in common than a perceived common enemy
No, we need a new word
Something as fresh and clean and bright and pure and
as innocent as a baby’s chortling laugh
Yes we need a new word and we need it bad
I sure hope we don’t find it