Missouri On A Leaf

It was a metaphor
That could grace
His tombstone

An epitaph stood
For what had been

He had in mind
More a sense
Of becoming

He read it years ago
In a“Beat” tract and
It immediately embodied
For him that sense
Of freedom and wonder
That he wanted for
The core of his life

It meant nothing at
All but yet it held for him
Wonderful possibility

Where are you going?

“I’m going to
Missouri on a leaf”

You Know His Name (1)

It was the disease of
incrementalism

Twenty years ago
everything was okay

Then, little by little
there were small changes

Each change was imperceptible
But with the passage of time
the changes in the aggregate
became glaringly apparent

He had no idea he looked
so utterly ridiculous
But the entire world
knew he had a combover

You Know His Name (2)

You could hear him
before you saw him.

He had a high pitched
voice that cut
the air as a knife.

Was he hard of hearing
or did he just want
to be heard.

It seems the volume
made up for an insecurity

He wanted the world
to know he was present

He did count for something
and his voice proved it so.

You Know His Name (3)

He was charming
He moved with an easy
grace and had
the most refined manners

He sounded so
intelligent

Once on the job
he made idiotic
mistake after mistake

His supposed
sophistication was
apparently little more
than a thin veneer

Composed primarily of
his British accent

Velocity

When you are
Four years old
The time between
Thanksgiving and
Christmas seems
Like an eternity

That makes sense
Of course because
It comprises two
Percent or so of
Your entire life
And perhaps a larger
Portion of the time
You believed
Christmas mattered

A couple of generations
Later there is no time
Between those two
Events and the
Velocity of the
Calendar inhibits
Accomplishing all of
The necessary tasks

In later adulthood
We want the calendar
To slow down

We can wait for
Christmas

Fish

It was that
Late summer
Early fall
Indian summer

Before hunting
Season when the
Light is clean and
The colors flaxen

I headed out
After school in
My Dad’s pick-up
To fish in the thin
Hours before dark

Out at my grandparents
Ranch in the creek
Through the big woods
And in the small irrigation
Ditches that bisected
The grain and alfalfa
Fields off the creek

Into the neighbor
Place there was a
Small stream
Hidden in the grasses

Fish like to hide
And I let my
Line drift into
The darkness with
A fresh worm on
The Eagle Claw No. 10

I had just let
The line slide in
When a big trout hit

I set the hook
And played it
Until I could
Bring it in.

My Dad called
His friend over
To see the fish
When I got home

It was a fat
18 inch Rainbow
That curled round
The creel.

Mud Puddle

What took you
Long, she asked,
To come home
From school

It was the
Mud puddle
My brother said
He had to walk
Around a
Mud puddle

He got in trouble
Because he forgot
To say the mud puddle
Was large and fascinating

He forgot to say
He stopped to throw rocks
In it, steer small
Wooden ships across it
And wage imaginary wars

The mud puddle was
Intriguing and complex
And time ran away
From him

He got in trouble
Because he didn’t
Explain the nuance.

Life is a lot
Like a mud puddle.