for me

remember and forget
old age digs holes
in the stuff our lives
are built on
remember old friends
death selected so long ago
that still live when your
thoughts find them
the sound of their voices
their smiles survived death
they last in old memories
we cherish and hold
a field full of people
animals places and things
a portrait of my life
framed and treasured
I want to remember you
but not that you are gone
keeping you in thoughts
dancing on puppet strings
keeping you alive
for me

remember and forget

remember and forget

grief

grief

sadness followed

I want to remember them but I want to forget they have died -sometimes I can't find the part of me that separates my thinking of them as if they are still alive -but it doesn't matter because in thoughts it doesn't matter if they are dead or alive -thoughts are hard to leave knowing they are over but sometomes I forget -I met a man at the pool one day the next day after the pool we talked in the hot tub later that day he died I couldn't find his place in our short life together -Skip why were you in my life-who just died and who just before them -sadness followed these thoughts-go away life is best

coffee with bobtail

55 slow degrees
first light
coffee time
perfect superb
second morning
of yemen coffee
on the cabin porch
with bobtail
first cup
of yemen coffee
from the roasteria
on vashon island
ordered as a special
of the month
anticipated everyday
done first
grinder purrs
aroma mixes
fresh morning breeze
as the fog settles
on the twin peaks
the deer graze
bobtail pesters
my first feral cat
she is mine
I am hers

the great one

really great poems wait patiently
hiding behind noisy wished on lines
poets keep struggling in foggy tangles
desperately rescuing weak vague words
for unsure destinations
wishing hoping needing wanting
their rhyme of all time
to be memorized repeated and loved
between the pages for eternity
success is a sweet reward
found in quiet places
where poets hear their songs
dancing on time lines never done
searching ever searching for
the great one

ED

he will be remembered
by many who loved him
he left gentle footsteps
on his lifes path
his smile
his twinkling eyes
his easy way
he made you important
he is remembered
as he treated those
about him in life
he is not finished
just on his way
to a brighter clearer day
God puts us
where he wants us
I am glad he put
Edward Hollar
in my life

catalpa worms

when I was a child
perhaps sometime in 1948
my father would take me fishing
on clear lake in indiana
where we had a cottage
we stopped on the way there
to collect catalpa worms
on a farm whose owner
my father knew
there was this big blooming tree
of the trumpet-creeper family
covered with caltapa worms
plentiful for the taking
we put them in an old
coffee can where we had put
some leaves and twiggs
when we got to the lake
dad and I got out our
old cane fishing poles
that had just the right
hook line and sinker
the old wooden row boat
dad had painted green years ago
was still tied at the dock
it had a 5-horse johnson motor
hooked on the back in case we decided
to ride around the lake
we loaded up the worms poles
live well life jackets and gas can
and unhooked the boat from the dock
fishing had begun
we were after pan fish
which we got plenty of
but now and then a largemouth bass
would decide to eat
a big jucy catalpa worm
this was quite a fight
and surely lots of fun
dad and I ate fish later
and if we had to share them we did
if the catalpa worms were not in season
dad had a contraption he made
that he plugged into an electric outlet
and stuck the metal end into the ground
where he had dumped some water
out of the ground came big night crawlers
you had to grab the end that was out
and pull pretty hard
sometime you didn't get the whole worm
they also ended up in the coffee can
the fish liked them as well
stuff like this you never forget
you just sometimes forget
to write about them