Childhood Home

I remember the wide steps
And the cold, lead railing

Of an indeterminate gray,

And blue painted walls that never peeled.

Many nights now I climb the stairs,

Alone in the dusk

Of the quiet house.

Walking the stairs

I am neither the child

Nor who I now claim to be.

Suspended always in mid flight,

With the threshold of my bedroom

Just around the corner

It is now time to get up for work.

Thanksgiving Morning

On browned wax paper warm granola crackles
With a scent of chai cupped in my hands
And the feeling of ease I could grow into,
Waking up late
With the full light of day as my only alarm,
Abetted by two taps from a gray paw.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Fallen Leaves

If I were to close my eyes,

I would see the leaves of autumn,

Upright on their stems and side by side

Like a phalanx of fallen heroes.

Myrmidons of the season,

You appeared,

Or so it seemed,

One morning when I was not looking,

Fringing the limbs of the maple

Like the rime of an old man's beard.

When I finally took notice,

There you were at my feet

In the darkness of an afternoon

When squirrels scratched their way home.

Ode to a Clementine

I take a clementine in my hand
From its place in the mesh bag with the others.

How many times in past Novembers
In the first chill with the few leaves remaining on the neighbor's maple,
Have I marveled anew
At the first clementine in my hand?

Its porous skin
Gliding through my fingers
As peel falls away
And the fragrance of sun and orchards
Stays for the moment in my kitchen.

The Hiawatha

Squat and fleeting farmhouses

Across the window of a moving train.

They are markers of a bygone era,

Of a past that was not mine.

In a depot of a town

Between the city I live in and another,

Molded wood of a stationhouse

Has given way to masonry

And effacing in my mind

Urban legends of molded wood.

In the ensuing hour,

When sights and anticipation meet

In the Quiet Car of the train,

I pass the sedge of wind-blown pastures,

Then well-tended lawns in late November.

Soon, rusted factories

In an unscrubbed part of the city

Come into view with its

Imagined smell of smoke.

I rub my eyes of sleep,

Looking up into the gleam of glass

And its reflection below

In the river of life.

My Neighbor's Tree

How ageless you are,

Your limbs in four seasons

I see ever tireless,

Whether well-dressed

In a dappling of green,

Or more often than not,

Half-doffed and proud.

Certainty

A flutter of green.

Faded, single leaf

Then spray of gold,

Carried on a wind,

Skimming my hair.

The morning has gone,

And with it

Those patients

Who one by one

Have sat in the evened-out light

Of my examining room.

A chart has closed,

And plan of action

Made official

In bold typescript.

Now in the open

Of a midday walk,

I can see the words

Already spoken

Between us,

My patient and me.

My words removed

His bated breath.

In a hushed corner,

Surety was tendered,

An occasion

Rare enough

In the well-lit room.

Seventeen Years Later

Hours passed

Into teacups.

The flecked foam

From our chai

Lapped and ebbed

In oversized cups.

I have not seen my friend

For many years,

A realization

Felt more than thought

At a corner table,

In a press

Of coats and bags.

Intervening years

Stacked like books,

And the glancing thoughts

Of those past times

I had scribbled down

On sheets now crumpled

To slide between

Thick leather tomes.

I retrieved notes

That were not forgotten,

Our chuckles ringing

Over drained cups

Of the too sweet chai.

Dream About Tea II

Two cacti stand sentry,
Spines gently bristling
Along hazy windows.

The sunlight is in our eyes,
And in the leaves
That dance and skim
On a square table between us.

Green tea leaves
In my glass mug
Unfurl like
So many sails
On the calm
Of an open sea.

Sniffles, congestion
Of yet another fall cold
Are easily forgotten
In the ample sunlight
Of Dream About Tea.