poem

You’re Still Teaching Me

Poetry 
1999

When I was younger, 
I would think
I don’t learn neat things from you 
like my friends from their dads.
 
I didn’t learn to hunt, ride a snowmobile, or fix a car.
 
I wondered how you knew about fixing things around the house.
How was I going to remember it all?
Why didn’t you know how to fix a car, or hunt?
How I wished you did.
 
Years later,
I don’t like to hunt, ride snowmobiles or fix up cars.
I like to build porches,
talk about landscaping,
how to unclog pipes.

You let me to learn from my mistakes,
to find my way,
offering guidance
even when I didn’t listen
(I learned my stubbornness from you too).
 
2021
 
I have two boys of my own. 
You’d be eighty-one this year, 
but you’ve been gone for nine.

I miss talking to you.
 
But you’re still teaching me.

Morning on Cobscook Bay

Chronicles of a Wandering Marshmellow, Poetry

Low tide renders towering conifers and the rocky shoreline

as an oil painting on the still water

Crabs scuttle over rust colored seaweed

that pops in the morning sun

Still Fighting

Poetry

In the land of sand
he slept with a gun
under his pillow
in a bunker of
cinder blocks and plywood

Safe at home
nothing feels right

Steering the car
across the center line
at high speeds
fearful of roadside trash
It could be a bomb

Unable to manage crowds
he can’t see everyone’s hands

Twenty-one years
of following orders
and sacrifice
they are unconcerned

Feeling alone
In an incomprehensible world
void of order and discipline

Still fighting
now for medical care

 

One Handed Walking Poem

Poetry

Runny nose and snotty eyes
This crying boy is no surprise
Little sleep from coughing so
Makes him not want to let me go

He spits his noodle on the floor
The dog waits patiently by the door
From his cries I can tell
Dinner is not going well

With all the tears he has shed
I think it best to go back to bed
He will have non of that
Instead we walk and babble at the cat