Ice-out

August 1, 2020
Going into our 44^th year
More than numerical symmetries
Not always perfectly square;
Our peculiar, personal cosmologies from far distant paths
Forge-welded into this one out of all;
 
Energy inputs from a few backward spinning electrons
Settling together into one orbital
Despite radically different nascent realities,
Like two rogue planets
Converging onto one interstellar path;
 
Though the space allotted was free and sure
Always one step ahead of the dour.
Clashes inevitably occurred
Without incurring lasting damage from their impact energies.
 
There have been hiccoughs for sure
But mostly we’ve succeeded
You’ll have to admit
Nothing’s ever perfect
But faithful effort and best intentions have always remained
Searching for the more perfect union
In this our third-third of life together.
 
Don’t you think
Things have stayed mostly on balance?
Shivered and knocked to a knee
But never to ground.
Given some of the possible outcomes
That’s saying something
I think…

A WALK IN THE OUTFIELD
(Celebrating the marriage of Liz to my son Tom)
10/16/2020

There was a time, my son
That seems like a very short time ago
When all it took to fix momentary tribulations,
A tough loss,
A strike out with the winning run on third,
Or anything else that seemed earth shaking from the previous moments,
Was a walk in the outfield after everyone else had gone home;
From foul line to foul line
Once, twice, however long it took
Teasing perspective out of frustration,
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
 
Turning setbacks into life lessons,
Is what we both learned.
But now the years have passed, too quickly I might add,
And my legs will not carry me on similar walks.
But, you see, the patterns have been set and
Now you have Liz, your trusted life-partner
Who stands willing and able to walk in my stead,
She who trained for this moment on frozen slopes
Schussing down huge mountains on feet
Adorned with cutting flat boards.
 
Such daring and speed are not needed
For walks in the outfield like ours.
You both seem to sense your
Common ground in newly explored fields of green.
So many worldwide walkabouts you already have shared
Seeing life while enriching each other’s lives,
Whether you realized it or not.
 
New territories will undoubtedly beg for conquest
But you will meet them together now.
Your walks will be paced differently from ours
And undoubtedly will address different ups and downs.
This is as it should be
In case you were wondering.
 
No world will remain the size of an oyster.
Problems seem bigger when you are your own navigator
Through life’s troubled waters,
But big problems become pearls
By finding an outfield to walk in
To ease an agitated mind.
 
You now have another partner
To ‘walk those lines’,
Walks that will never change their effect
If you both remain open
To each other’s harmonies
And unique musical themes.
So, don’t ever forget the structure and forms
Of our original walks in the outfield.
 
They may be but a beginning cure for anything
Tormenting you and/or Liz
Out of the froth and the chop unsettling your seas,
Or even a seemingly placid harbor.
What exists, after all, is your shared journey
Enabled by your bonded slivers of universe, space, and time.
Resolution can be but one purposeful walk away.
Just like it was for us way back in the day.

Bridges
2/15/21

The February dormancy
arrives with a layering of ice,
a frozen connection
across the pond.
 
The subject of this plane of reunion
coupling Nature’s bodies,
presents as a fissure
in human relations.
 
This bridge,
encompassing properties mysterious,
moves between material states
with stealth.
 
Its transitory dimension
and translucence or turbidity,
unsettling as we traveres it,
yet exhilarating as we engage it.
 
I note the deer
with an innate sense of trust,
move across its impermanence
as an avenue to sustenance.
 
There is a natural recognition
of symbiosis and respect.
This gateway to the present
no longer hostage to past properties.
 
This trust, however, suffers
the faint fear of a foothold
softened by time and
certainty’s loss.
 
The bonding and breaking
within its molecular structure,
activity beyond our gaze,
serves notice of fragility’s enablers.
 
But what of bonds
that tether and snap in silence,
no longer of Nature, but emotion?
Is not the human formulation as impermanent,
subject to undetected transformations?
 
Is time our nemesis
in a movement to a state
where listless vapor infuses our memory
and renders friendship weakened?
 
What bulwark is there
to combat diluted contact,
which drains
intimacy, sharing and growth?
 
It is an irony that ice in relations
may act as a more formidable bridge, once thawed,
to other states of connection
more enduring and with greater transportability.

Contours
2/18/21

The topographic map,
marking lines of earth’s history,
rhythmic and undulating,
a key to unseen mystery.
 
It is puzzling to decipher
a reading more visual,
for lines and contours
are never quite usual.
 
The surfaces withheld
in a state of unknown.
Peaks and swales divulged,
no scenery overblown.
 
A crag or a bluff,
a butte or a stone,
can be fashioned in shape
but eludes all tone.
 
A plain or a meadow,
its grasses askew,
does not share its secrets
of various fescues.
 
The oak tree exists,
standing majestic and proud,
beneath a dark sky,
ensconced in a cloud.
 
Their faces come forth,
but no longer a landscape.
Rather, my friends on a screen,
without any handshake.
 
I see sands and crevasses,
steep rifts and small mounds,
pocked marks and scar tissue,
rugged lines all around.
 
They are contours again,
a map more revealed,
of faces I know,
a history congealed.
 
Their stories stand out,
but so far untold,
so much to discover,
indications so bold.
 
There is mystery the same,
as both share a drama,
with markings that etch
the forces of trauma.