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
Tag Archives: Aging
AN OLD RECIPE
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
THE SAME AGE
Grateful now to be
the same age as Satchel Paige
neither one knowing
DEAD DOG WAKING
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
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
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
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
Y’ALL’SHEIMERS
Y’ALL’SHEIMERS
Getting old and forgetting
that the South lost the war
ONE FOR THE CAT
ONE FOR THE CAT
Buffy at fourteen
down to only two speeds
catnap and catnip
ELEVATORS
ELEVATORS
Remembering
all those seed filled erections
in every town on the prairie
back when the west was young