Life In Progress

Ever Green

Autumn orange, crimson, and yellow 
colors our thoughts
here at home

paints portraits of us soon living colored
by Minnesota's only two winter crayons,
white and black.

In a couple of months, our black and white
Winter will steal all color
from our little patch of the U.S.

It will try to freeze our hearts and bones
with its -30 (Celsius) breath.
Our maples, oaks, and elms will be barren.

The snow piled along our sidewalks will be black with soot.
Clouds will grey the sky and
the air we breathe will bite our lungs.

We'll wake for work
in darkness and return
from work in darkness.

That is why we plant evergreens.  


Dedicated to Deya
Copyright (c) 2016 by the authors.

Ever Green

An orange, crimson, and yellow Autumn
is a good time to think about things like that,

things like living colored by only white and black crayons,
at least in my part of the world.

In a couple of months, Minnesota's black and white Winter
will steal all color from this little patch of the U.S. where I live.

It will try to freeze our hearts and bones with its -30 (Celsius) breath.
Our maples, oaks, and elms will be barren.

The snow piled along our sidewalks will be black with soot.
Clouds will hang dark gray in the sky. The air we breathe will bite our lungs.

The day will be dark when we wake
and dark when we come home from work.

That is why we plant evergreens.

Dedicated to Deya
Copyright (c) 2016 by the authors.

A Pilgrim's Sonnet

"Let me play the guy this time,
Mr. Poet," she insists.
"You want to play Romeo?", I ask.
"I want you to play Juliet," she explains.

Do I have to do Juliet's voice, I wonder?
She fits an imaginary ring of flowers
on my head and I buckle my equally
peace-loving sword around her waist.

She takes my right hand in hers
and takes up the first of fourteen lines
of a little pop song rhymed over
400 years ago and embedded in a play.

My hand is a holy place according to her,
a place that her hands
are unworthy to touch.
If I have a problem with my saintly hand in hers

she has her lips,
like two blushing pilgrims,
standing ready with a kiss
to make amends for the offense.

Hold on there girl.
You're being way too hard
on your hands.
Pilgrims high five or fist bump

the hands of statued saints
all the time and that works
just as well as a kiss so far
as the saints are concerned.

Still speaking in rhyme she muses 
that saints and pilgrims have lips too.
That's true but their lips are meant 
to be used in prayer, I point out.  

I must let her lips pray as her hands
have already done and grant her prayer
lest she despair in her faith. My lips
soon taste the sweetness of her prayers.

The sins she had, I guess
are mine now. Knowing that, 
she kisses me again
to take them back.

 

Dedicated to Nora
Copyright (c) 2016 by the authors.

The Journal

My wife gifted me a journal,
for my travels - leather bound -
with a map of the world traversing its covers;
the stiff spine joins one half of the globe to its mate.

It's a work of art, exquisitely rendered
with an imposing ream of blank parchment
bound in its decorated leather.
I'm titling it "Writer's Block".

I can't scribe anything on these delicate pages
without my scribbles looking like
graffiti sprayed
across the likes of the Sistine Chapel.

I can't pierce her gifted heart
without piercing mine so I begin by transcribing
with my poor best scribblings, Cupid's adolescent graffiti
"Tony hearts Maureen".  


Dedicated to Maureen
Copyright (c) 2015-2016 by the authors.

 

Rehearsal Dinner

The butterflies of pre-wedding anxiety
are fluttering about the eyes of the bride-to-be
applying an uncertain shade of mascara.

When the priest begins to shepherd us
from this Church of the Assumption
toward the rehearsal dinner and an Irish pub,

I judge it to be Divine intervention -
after all, there's no problem in the world
that can't be solved in an Irish pub.

Even an independent, confident offspring -
who at 17 years young roused us at 7:00 AM
on a Saturday morning
“asking” permission in her FYI way

for her and the other girl, boy | boy, girl
friends to travel cross country to the Smokey Mountains
and on to Fort Lauderdale to flock there
with others of their flock for Spring break -

even an independent, confident offspring -
who that morning wore a puzzled shade
of mascara “Why does it matter to you so much?” -
even she needs to hear her parents approve.

“No alcohol, no drugs, no sex, no speeding
and no Fort Lauderdale.” were the rules we posted
in the Eurovan they named The Space Mobile.

There are no rules now to utter -
to mix in with the clink of glasses
and the festivity brewed in the mixing of families -

only to sculpt the air with a whisper
that though she'll be one man's self-assured wife for this part of her life
she'll always be our fearless daughter.


Dedicated to Elizabeth
Copyright (c) 2015-2016 by the authors.