It has occurred to me that nature

Does not serve me the way it served Mary Oliver.

Surely it calms me, and transports me,

But only sometimes advises me, guides me, to my true peaceful purpose.

No, I get absorbed by music.

Not every time I hear it, but often enough to know,

That in the way Mary examines each petal of the rose

And attribute to it natural happiness and then breathes that into her own heart;

I enjoy a great song.

The other day I heard an alt country song on Spotify Joe Ely Radio.

At one point, an accordion filled 8 bars, followed by a steel essentially echoing, followed by the accordion and steel together.

I loved with all my heart the similarities in the notes by each musician,

But marveled at how the tones of the instruments themselves created a unique beauty that

Spoke to my heart,

And I breathed it all the way in.

And I felt a little more free,

A little more transported,

A little more like I can usually find joy,

If I really want it.

Your grave site serves no purpose for me yet.

The bench with your name and your funny quip sits without my having sat.

I think often of the side trip on the way to work

Or of eating myself full before or after at the enormous portions breakfast stop.

But then I don’t go and I don’t stop.

Nearly 18 months have gone by.

I wonder if I am neglectful.

As if I’ve forgotten,

But most days it’s still like you’re here.

Stopping on my own volition,

I think would take that away.

In a strange way, I’m glad that sometimes we’d go days without speaking,

and weeks without seeing each other.

Without those empty spaces,

I don’t know how I could survive

This large,

Cold,

Empty space.

I feel old today.
The ache in my bones that feels ordinary as I age
has turned angry creating a physical and emotional limp.

That which makes me feel energized is gone.
The hope for a brighter, much brighter future in my lifetime
which has naively sustained me
no longer burns.

However delusional I have been, I am no longer.

Neither me nor my children will see the hungry fed.
Or the homeless housed.
Or the despised loved.

I will go forward
looking to the sunlight and ignoring all around me,
as I have done for nearly sixty years.
Except now I know that in my remaining years
that is all that awaits me.

I will do my part to find peace in my meditation.
I will do my part to help others as I have always done.
But the notion that someday my good works will be done
and the world will be better as a whole
is
extinguished.

I am not surprised that is true.
I am surprised that it has knocked me on the head so ruthlessly.

Today

Here in the woods by the ocean,

I look for my brother’s presence.

I am willing and able to see signs where there are none knowing that he is with me.

155 Sundays have passed since the ordinary Sunday became so sadly different.

What was supposed to be a visit before he went home turned into a chaotic last goodbye.

I saw a deer disappear in the brush and his brother watching, wondering if he was safe.

“Brother, I’m gone!”

I had a bunny run around me on the path to avoid me, only to return to the space he was working.

“Brother, I’m right here!”

The dust will not settle for awhile.
In all likelihood, more will be reduced to dust,
to ash, to ruin,
At least for some.

While the middle tries to hold on to a slightly higher quality of life
than the middle of thirty years ago,
who held on tightly to a slightly higher quality of life
than the middle of thirty years before,
who moved out of comfortable tenements to small single family homes
and then worked two jobs
and left their children alone more often
neglecting them 50 weeks a year
for 2 weeks at the beach
and struggled to keep it all within reach
and called it progress
until the real bosses, the invisible ones, realized
that the good work of the two loving but nearly absentee parents
could be done by another couple down south
or further down south
or to the east
and the invisible bosses could make real money
while the middle sagged.

The sad cycle of who is placated just enough to feed
the beast of gluttony.
The illusion that the piece of the pie has gotten bigger and more delicious
as we merely are just temporarily
getting fattened
for the slaughter.

The Mom I never figured out.

Who was not there for me.

Who loved me from afar, but was not far away.

Who was closer to my nephews and nieces than she ever was to me.

And no one, not even her in our brief exchanges, ever told me why.

And I remember my college girlfriend and me at the funeral, after she did not even know that my “real” mother was living until I told her she had died.

I always understood John Lennon’s “Mother” more than most, even the first time I heard it.

The Mom who came into my life at 8 and gave me new life and a younger brother.

Whom I count as my mother.

Who loved me until her dying day that came far too soon.

Who gave me new hope and saw the goodness in me.

And made me feel safe and loved.

The Mom of our children who waited for the blessing of our first child with the sorrow that comes from waiting.

Who shines her light. Who does the hard work.

Who teaches in the school almost as well as she teaches in the home.

And I think how both my Moms helped me find this Mom, the one with whom I share parenthood,

The one with whom I share my life.

My wife.

There is a point that no manner of new age reading,
review of ancient scripture,
or calling out to the spirits within or outside seems to provide any peace of mind.

This,
I think,
is the very essence of loneliness.

It is the bone chilling wind that can hit in the middle of the hottest summer.
No one would know that what I need is a blanket.

It is the impossible sweat-drenched heat-wave that can nearly drown the victim in the middle of the coldest winter.
No one would know that what I need is to be covered in ice.

It is the tastelessness of the good food, and the allure of the sweet poisons.

It is the heartburn that water causes, and wine, strangely, relieves.

The point is that singular!
That sharp!
That thin, as to be invisible even as it pokes me.

The sages of olden times call out to me.

The saints, the ones who deserve it, pray for my soul.

My ears hear noises that irritate me where there is no noise
and curse the music from the prettiest of birds..

The point is that singular!
That sharp!
That thin, as to be invisible even as it pokes me.