A Love Story

at the Oak Grove
____________________

Cookie
cooling begs
"eat me please!"

*

dad's plan

He lost his six-pointed hat
to blondie, little girl
and she won't give it back.
She took it
to her stuffed animal stack
and flipped it onto her humongous
lion 'Growlerjack',
the one she falls asleep on all the time.

* *
*

scrapbook construction

The spring's young plum leaves
draw the air slowly
through the afternoon.

A field of forget-me-nots with
a blackberry bush border,
brushes the east side of the cabin.

And a little girl so seriously four,
lecturing an old dog sternly,
on why he shouldn't lick the glue.

* *
*

February Journal - Page 23

My father taught me how to build a fire.
My mother, how to lift with sacred words.
He never let me forget what solid meant.
She saw to it my dreams held flights of birds.

My son and I today, planted redwood.
Told him we owed the forest a small tree.
I sang an Irish song with my daughter
and chanted, with my wife, love poetry.

* *
*

always with the giggles in the hot tub

one person kneels
in the tub, the other sits,
feet dangling and
oh, never mind,
tongues get involved,
the positioning of jets
is so important,
sometimes standing happens,
occasionally railings break,
every now and then
a rubber duck appears.

* *
*

summer Saturday night stories

Grandpa's gruesome ghosts
claw from the dying campfire,
spare scared little boys.

* *
*

preparations

At her father's bedside
Sarah's autumn ear, listening
for the northern windchime,
catches its first faint stirrings.
Turning to her eldest son,
this last summer thirty-one,
who does not hear the morning,
"Split and stack that far madrone
close to home ... I feel October's chill."

* *
*

no one wears pocket watches anymore

he always had his thumb
and index finger in his watch
pocket trying to hold time
still
it was his 'prize' possession
and he held it lovingly
stroked it constantly
chanting to ease its burden
of knowing the exact size
of tomorrow

* *
*

millennia - the responsibilities of rocks

amid the spits of zealots,
arguing exactly where
to park the sun,
and other equally obnoxious
screamers certain
the world will end
with the sputters of out-
witted silicon,
he holds her waist
and calms her children.
'look, the moon's
changing shape
and venus still
carries the night.'

-beau blue