Index

Thanks for stopping by. This is a very imperfect collection of things that I am currently working on. I would like it very much if you would read these things, kick them around a bit, and then email me with your comments. I may be reached at lcr@g2a.net.

Contents

Kitchens and Holidays

Someplace I Go

What B'neath The Tree I Found

What Will Become of The Child I Was?

Winter Comes With Snow

Angry Words

Kitchens and Holidays

There was always room for one more;

The biggest room in the whole world,

With the round oak table, and coffee

Bittersweet,

With cream,

And a swinging pendulum clock on the wall.

Christmas time, in the white,

Cold—ice laden steps, help

Your grandfather to the door, and mom?

Yes son, go ahead and offer,

There is always room enough for one more.

And after, with coffee cups

Half full, and,

Old people talking, playing cards,

And I with my treasures,

Sitting,

Hoping,

To be noticed.

The hands have always looked so old,

"Grandma, why do you have that bump on your hand?"

"That’s the way God left me after the fish hook went away."

"Someday, I will be a doctor"

"And make it better."

And she would smooth my hair, and kiss my forehead,

Her smell like bottled love,

Not sweet, but yet,

So much more so than anything else.

And late into the night, the cards

Flying across the table, and the letters

On the squares

From the bag

Upon the board

And the biter-sweet smell of coffee,

With a bite,

Dessert, and then to bed.

Hearing them talk now,

Muffled sounds from down the stairs

Drifting, slowly,

Climbing—

One by one by one

The stairs, this music

They sing a Christmas lullaby, there

In the biggest room in the world.

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What Will Become Of The Child I Was?

When once a boy

In silent wonder,

Sat in quiet awe

Of the adult’s mighty thunder.

Now my words

Strike quiet lightning.

I see in my son’s eye,

That I am frightening.

I have now become

What I did not understand.

I wish I could go back

To my childhood stand.

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Someplace I Go

Outside of me there is so much

To do and to think and to see and to feel

Sometimes it seems that I just can’t

Do everything that everyone wants

And I really want to

Because I care and I want

To feel the warm sunshine

Of your approval

And affection

But,

When it gets too busy

When my pace wears me out

And I don’t think that there is even one

Bit of energy left for me

To hand out

There is a place inside

That I go

And that is where I find

Just what I need, a small piece of mind

And even if only

I get there just once

In the course of my day, I somehow

Seem to make it OK.

If ever I seem

Somewhere far away,

Even as I sit at arms length,

I know you will understand;

I hope you do this yourself,

That I am off visiting just for a bit

That place inside,

Where God and I sit.

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Photograph: Cathedral Lake and Park 1944 by Ansel Adams

Winter Comes With Snow

It is snowing again.

Winter stretches out in front of me

Like a thousand miles of interstate highway

With no place to stop along the way.

The snow is relentless,

And even though it is beautiful

When you watch it with someone you love,

Or when you see it in a postcard,

When it falls today, it seems to fall hard.

The cold has soaked in to my soul

Winter is here, and

It is snowing again.

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What b’neath the tree I found

When I was a little boy

And Santa Claus had left the house

I would get up extra early

To see what he had left for me

Beneath the Christmas tree

In the room at the end of my house.

And even though I am older now

And my sons trace my footsteps

And I still can hear the sleigh bells

And I can still smell the pine

And I can hear the third step down from the top creak

As I sneak down to room at the end of my house.

My son, he is bigger now, and he says

Dad, is Santa real?

And I can still feel the stinging in my eyes

And I can still feel the warm wet tears

And how angry I was to find out,

So I tell him, Yes Son, and he will be here real soon

Their mother and I are living apart,

It probably seems dumb, but we weren’t very smart.

And we tell them we love them, and each other too

We’ll be together on Wednesdays, and weekends

And in the summer time too.

But Christmas mornings have been her with the two

This Christmas I slept on their couch

Just so i could watch my sons come out to see

What exactly it was that Santa Claus brought

And left beneath the tree.

Those two little men, like deer at dawn on a field

Came creeping out the bedroom, before the house came awake.

And I lay still on the sofa, buried ‘neath a quilt,

And I watched them as they danced in low crouching stances

All about the room.

And then my sons saw me, and realized who I was

And as they came to me with hugs and kisses,

Is Santa Claus real? I really can't say, but I know that Christmas was.

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Angry Words

When in a crescendo of stupidity voices launch

With arrows following swiftly in tow

It is a tough call which one does more damage

The feathered bolts, or stupidity’s crescendo.

The sword can cut, and leave it’s mark

But what’s said in anger cuts deeper I think

Always there to be relived

Ready to injure again at the speed of thought.

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