"Do you want to go?" My question is to the room. One set of ears hears in a dead sleep. Springing up. Feet in perfect ballet turnout. Spinning in circles. Pirouettes of ecstasy. "Why does he do that?" She's asked the question before. Sort of rhetorically. Aware that the pup enjoys going out. She's right to wonder, though. "Why does he do his dance of joy, whirling around as if in ballet slippers?" "The pup hears something...
"I can offer some tea," said the lady. Jim paused then spoke. "What was that?" "Your flag, flying outside. I noticed it. Would you like a cup of tea?" "Is there a problem with me displaying it?" Her head shook. "No, my friend. Not with the flag. The way you're showing it." Jim was not sure if he should be angry or not. "I can show it if I want. I'm not taking it down." "No. But it's showing purple, blue, green, yellow, or...
Traveling in a formation three AWACS aircraft passed overhead. Flying westerly towards home base. All volunteers. All part of a team. How does a loner fit into a team. He was always alone. Friendly. Not willing to be close. She was an echo in the shell of eccentricity. Where did her music come from. Walking in the rain. Umbrella in hand. Smoking a cheap cigar. Alone. You served. You volunteered. Even then you walked alon...
"I'm just trying to help. This will maybe make you feel better. Don't you think?" So tired. Maybe just let me be. Maybe I know best. Perhaps I've thought of all of that and I don't want to do that stuff. Okay? "Can I help? I'm just trying to help." Yes, of course you want to help, But I've thought about it all. I've thought of it. I really have. I'm doing what I can, I'm doing what will work. I'm doing what will work for...
There're crawly things down there. Damp and dusty and moldy. Has to be done. Maybe a drain needs to be snaked out. Costs a lot. Maybe you're the only one can crawl through. Someone has to do it. Once, long ago, your dad was too old and you did the job. The last time you were older than your dad had been. But, still, you're doing the work. Doing dirty jobs that need to be done. Some have never had dirty hands. Not literall...
Grandma passed over on International Women's Day. Rather appropriate. The date is set aside for celebrating the lives of women such as she. Strong, enduring, essential. Sometimes forgotten, unknown. Once upon a time, she would promenade along the Galveston seawall, pushing a pram with grandchild royalty bouncing inside. Getting sea breezes coming into the bay. Fulfilling duties willingly. An extended family, young and old...
They were on their way home to their brownstone in the Lower East Side. Walking together in the chill, abundant, evening air while wet fluffy flakes fell. She stopped, turned, and smiled up at him with nostalgic eyes. "What is it?" Droplets of precipitation stuck to the umbrella he had in his hand. Holding it up and over the two of them. Sniffing the clean refreshed air he head tilted at her. Then leaning down to kiss her...
Life is a special game. Sometimes it's fun, like playing jacks or marbles. You had a talent for some competed on the sandy school playground. Some more than others. Such as tetherball and hopscotch. She walked towards you along a street during freshman orientation. On the sidewalk was a hopscotch court. You tossed the keychain from your pocket to a square, hopped on one foot, stooped, picked it up. Hopped on to the end an...
"I sometimes think it would have been a better life if I'd stayed in the Navy." A slight pause then she echoed my wish. "Yes. We would have met differently and stuff. But we would have had a great life. I've thought of it as well. We didn't have children. Would have been lots of fun. Traveling around the world. I've daydreamed about it, too." Her vision of living another lifetime. Her reveries could be about anything. Rig...
It's not the dripping that I hear, it's just the moaning in her sleep, resting here beside me. The faucet often awakens me as well. My sleepless nights we spend together as she restively walks in mysterious dreams unknown to me. And I hear the dripping, knowing it must be fixed, but how do I repair all of the broken things in our life. All the things I have to remember. The things she has forgotten from moment to moment....
Above the one room farmhouse, with the curling swirls of hickory fueled smoke, the pond is frozen over. There beside the barn built of rocks, cement, and sweat it stares blankly into the lowering winter sky. Morning hoar frost covers barren branches and hedge apple fence posts. Up early, after broken fast, stomping a treacherous track down the slope from rocky meadowland. Sliding over the solid pool on bare shoe leather....
Maybe once upon a time a pretend first lady. The luscious lady love of a sometimes presidential candidate steps up to the mic. "I'm Linda Rondstadt - we march to Different Drums." The Torchy Rock star with her torchy voice and torchy chicana body beloved of young boys into their old boy years. Cute as a bug and tasty as a dumpling she met the guv in a Mexican restaurant. Belting out the rock songs of a generation. Never...
Summer days. Two gals, riding along, bikes jiggling down country lanes, past sweltering fields of beans and corn. Together as always in those days. Laughing and singing. Tasting the ripened berries. Holding hands, walking through hallways of an old brick schoolhouse smelling of caustic cleansers. One day you hugged Trudy goodbye. Feeling her thin shoulders tense up. The porch screen door squeaked. "Get on home, Becca. It'...
Last night the grasshoppers missed their cue to enter. Chomp. Chomp. Daddy's tiny dancer was playing Nutcracker. She plays that game with all of the cookies that she makes with Daddy's help. They bake cookies together. So much fun. Especially at Christmas time. The Nutcracker ballet comes. Tiny dancer is a ballerina. Dancing on pointe. Not really. Sigh. Some day. "Little one, where are the grasshoppers?" Daddy is stern. "...
Let's take a ride, little one, you think. Get in the car. We need to get out with our reflections rippling across the terrain, the vistas of the musing mind today. Today it's time to think. As those thoughts have lived inside you for a lifetime, making your life less lonely, learning the landscape, living it along your highway to inevitable dissolubility. You knew a lot of people. You had few friends. For pure closeness...
