ANGELS IN TEXAS
If you can’t die
In a state of grace
you might just die
in the state of Texas
If you can’t
Be carried on high
by the white wings of angels
You may still
be lifted with loving care
borne up on the black wings of buzzards
Tag Archives: Death
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 FIRST MOTHERS DAY AFTER THE LAST MOTHERS DAY
THE FIRST MOTHERS DAY AFTER THE LAST MOTHERS DAY
Slowly it dawns on Sunday morning
that you didn’t call nearly often enough
and didn’t send nearly enough cards
or thank her nearly enough
And even if
you put the cattle racks
on the big grain truck
and filled it with flowers
till it ran over all four sides
Even if you drove it to the cemetery
and dumped the whole damn load
on her single rose grave
it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough
SUPPER WITH THE PhD
SUPPER WITH THE PhD
I sit across from my friend
and watch as he drowns
his well developed brain
Every day after work
he puts another million
brain cell kittens in a sack
and takes them to the lake
It is not for me to judge
This small death each day
may well have kept him from
the larger choice his father made
And a diminished capacity may help
when listening to the daily news
or hanging out with poets
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TWO MORE HAIKUS FOR NO MORE WAR
TWO MORE HAIKUS FOR NO MORE WAR
Rumsfeld fell today
his wake not like their sleep
no flag on coffin
—–
More I hear and see
more “war crimes” gets to be
a redundancy
A BEAVER TALE
A BEAVER TALE
The ranch hands found him
half grown and half starved
wandering through the hills
five miles from any real water
Rolled him up in a leather jacket
threw him in the back of the jeep
brought him home and set him loose
in that big slough north of the barn
And what an architect he turned out to be
building his house with cedar post beams
and mud and straw and sticks for walls
larger and homier than a sodbuster’s cabin
An aquatics engineer as well
every inch of his domain cobwebbed
with small rivulets to larger streams
to little rivers all running to his castle
Spill a cup of coffee anywhere in twenty acres
and he could sip it in his home
Mighty impressive and a good neighbor too
until the dry years came
At the edge of the slough was a dugout
where the cattle watered spring and fall
and mostly in winter when we chopped
a hole through thick ice and the cattle’s
weight pushed water to the surface
The beaver needed water too
and he knew what to do
dig a hole through the soft dirt bank
and steal his water from our tank
I watched the surface a long patient time
to see the Vee of his swimming
to shining brown of his head
and fill it with lead
My brother held him up, large as a small man
Life on the ranch is very simple, as was I
what interferes with living has to die
as a city boy might swat a fly
Had they gotten to me then
I could have gone to war
BURYING MOTHER
BURYING MOTHER
All that time in the womb
mother and baby exchanging cells
mother to baby and baby to mother
from one to the other and back again
One becoming two becoming one
becoming two and the two always one
It is not the same with the father
invited pleasure or invading pain
there for a moment and gone again
When you bury your mother
the worms eat you too
THE HUNTING BLIND
THE HUNTING BLIND
Seems like a strange name
Isn’t it the prey
that we’re wanting to be blind
The deer in grace and beauty
unable to detect
behind the brown green screen
The man with his guns
and a paper in his hand
given to him by another man
Brown eyes soft in gratitude she bows
to the gift of scattered corn
Maybe it is a good name after all
Maybe it really is the hunter who can’t see
VACANCY
VACANCY
Walking through the room
pretty as a picture
hollowgram hanging in the air
exactly as if she was there
AFTER THE DEATH
AFTER THE DEATH
(for Orli and Gideon)
These are the days of the rats in the cages
The burrowing into sawdust corners
the gnawing on bars
and the running on wheels
mostly the running on wheels
Even at night, specially at night
while God in his lab coat naps in the corner
and you know with perfect logic and insanity
If you could just do it fast enough
if you could just do it right enough
Like the wheels of old watches
all the cogs would fit the way they used to
when the good ones all had jewels
sleeping safe in their dark cases
And each morning you had to wind them up
if you wanted hours in your day
And you know, wish, know, wish, know,
that there is another way that this must go
And if you could just get the woulda, coulda
shoulda, coulda, woulda, shoulda; would,
coulda, shoulda, woulda, wheels
to mesh their gears just right
You could turn it all back