On the Way to the Hoosick Diner
Oct 2023

I don’t want timid sips of soup.
I want pumpkin pie,
Plain, no topping. ….
A gutsy piece reeking of pie spice,
A knobby crust as warm as toast.
Homemade pickles,
Roly-poly cranberry sauce
And fragrant chestnut dressing are for layering.
Tomorrow we can slice the turkey
Into saged and delicate slices,
Slurry the gravy over
Squash golden as sunflowers.
So
Let’s eat backwards!
Let’s have Pie
Now!

Request
October 2023

Please help me remember this day,
For when times get scary.
I need to remember a day in balance, today.
The clock ticks, the cat sleeps.
The sun and its shadows measure time
Across the still green grass.
The mailman comes.
A von Suppe overture comes on the radio
And I am slow dancing in the doorway.
I do not have enough fingers to count
The important people in my life
And I remember another day
When we sat in sunlight, together, content.

Windows in Mirrors
October 2023

The mirror of my life
faces both directions
Then and some new time:
Where I came from,
how I spent my days
And where I’m going,
time unknown,
Time enough to do something
Just one more time,
To finish what I started,
If I can manage
and it is worthy,
To learn more:
More places, ideas,
nouns and verbs,
beloved images.

I am pressed for time.
Do I have enough time
To finish furnishing my brain,
Decorating my key thoughts
with trivial,
lively, blessed details
Knowing, when I die,
It all goes with me:
Humor, anger, skills, a loving touch.
Still, when I go,
I want to die
Overstuffed like a favorite armchair
Pulled up to a wood fire
Crackling with ideas.

November 3, 2023

The geranium petals blow in the door with me…
West wind, warming us back into September.
I sit at the table determined to write to you
Something meaningful about growing old,
But my eyes and heart are caught
By the milkweed pod outside the window,
Slowly, persistently opening,
White fluff expanding, resting,
Getting its bearings,
”To stay? To wait? To leave home?”
The brisk wind pulls the fluff into a flag of indecision.
But you know what happens next.