LANTANA MANNA
(for Patricia Fiske at 77)
Trees and poets
grow from the inside out
The latest lines and rings
always
the greenest and most beautiful
Tag Archives: Friendship
PINCHER CREEK ALBERTA
PINCHER CREEK ALBERTA
Mid June and Cowboy Poets back in town
voices hoarse from long winters silence
And a thousand and more are here to hear
for the poets have been listening all year
Listening to the cattle and the coyotes
and the Northern Lights at nights
And they have been reminded
and being reminded they remember
and remembering they come here to remind
And just listening we remember
and unwind
EYES OF FRIENDS
EYES OF FRIENDS
While out pursuing life’s dim ends
we often meet the eyes of friends
It’s great to feel that magnet’s pull
the hearts becoming warm and full
There may be time to stop and stare
and many years of love and care
Or maybe silent and by chance
just a brief brief moments glance
It doesn’t really matter much
the contact’s made we feel the touch
Though if we ask of hows and whys
and what’s the magic of those eyes
They do what mirrors can’t quite do
they let you see right through to you
THOUGHTS ON A DEBBIE MOMENT
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
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
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
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
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
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
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