12-10-2014, 05:26 AM
Original post and comments can be found here:
Synthesis
Sleepless: eyes closed,
the open arms of an elm tree,
a mime show of shadows
spreading across mother’s rose
colored kitchen walls.
Each memory a cedar closet:
notebooks of unwritten poems,
a tin of icebox cookies baked
back in Wisconsin; dead limbs
of a winter birch in the side yard,
and father, as he lay dying:
femur, blood, urine; nothing
working, not even his dark sleep.
I dreamed about the strength
of this man’s trunk; his language,
his energy, the way his colors changed
year-to-year.
Who dreams about love
with an old year sputtering,
a new year tip-toeing in?
I wonder if he ever dreamed
at all?
I never asked.
Deserved
Synthesis
Sleepless: eyes closed,
the open arms of an elm tree,
a mime show of shadows
spreading across mother’s rose
colored kitchen walls.
Each memory a cedar closet:
notebooks of unwritten poems,
a tin of icebox cookies baked
back in Wisconsin; dead limbs
of a winter birch in the side yard,
and father, as he lay dying:
femur, blood, urine; nothing
working, not even his dark sleep.
I dreamed about the strength
of this man’s trunk; his language,
his energy, the way his colors changed
year-to-year.
Who dreams about love
with an old year sputtering,
a new year tip-toeing in?
I wonder if he ever dreamed
at all?
I never asked.
Deserved