Aging Happiness

Nothing more loving or telling
say I,
Then memories of yester year.

Those precious moments live between the tiny parts in our minds,
like short cut field grass between the toes.
Bouncing here and there. Sometimes,
appearing from nowhere. Flash!
…and suddenly I see – my Grandfather smiling at me –
With eyes I haven’t seen in 50 years.

His memory goes, as quickly as it came,
taking with him that familiar scent,
either cigar or blue-tip match struck to light it…
Space fades with his eyes, slowly getting farther and farther,
until I see nothing and am left with longing…
of just another second or two, perhaps…
And then gratitude – to God and to my mind.
For grace still allows me to remember such things.

But here we are, preparing yet again for another year.
Another effort, another cross to bear upon these aching bones.
Another year to be tormented by the evil of this Earth.
And what say you, dear friend, to my humbug temperament?
Quick to judge could be wrong because –
If nothing else I do this year,
then torture and slave away,
Then let it be to impart just here,
a smile for my grandchildren’s way…..

That memories of my eyes will keep them happy along their own way.
It’s really a gift from my Grandfather.
I’m only copy-catting.

Happy New Year all! Blessings to everyone.

Sweet Anna

There is a story within this pen,
a pen I flash so proudly about,
that doesn’t rise above the sin,
of other poems I may shout.

For nothing of this tale does say,
Proudly here I proclaim!
For within it I reveal today,
Nothing but dire shame.

It was youth that led me astray,
selfishly robbing her loving heart.
From the volumes of things she’d say,
Was last our vow to never part.

Because in the midst of a dark cold world,
where my soul had lavished so long,
Came a force of wonderment.
as a soul of complement,
a dearest thing of jubilant ……

… joy.
I should think.
That if my eye could only wink,
that I should find her winking back.
Then such emotion came to brink
and in that moment we came to link
our hearts our hands our souls could breach
something beyond our either reach
and darkness availed us no more
but rather trailed as we did soar…..
into…..

Something. Bright.
A new realm. A taste of spring, perhaps,
a place I’ve never been perhaps,
A place of something wondrous
to replace dark of old and blunderous
and to shed my realm of plunderous
where once I stood alone.

And then as sudden as a moonstruck gaze
I found her face within all the haze,
all the world in merry go round blaze
came something I had not appraised

Lips that did not move nor need a sound to rent,
for such green eyes of temperament
soothed my soul as lineament
and glanced the way so intimate
That dear, dear John……
She said. I love you.

So today I stand upon the spot,
once pasture and now parking lot,
where we sat and I first did see
that silent message from my dearly
that lit my world and memory
so bright that I could not see
the damage of my insincerity
would do to her best integrity
and bring my own selfish misery
to bear upon my sweet……

Anna,
Not a single day of these 44 years has passed without my mind thinking of you and the dear, wondrous, beautiful part of my own life that you created, the kind part of me, the now wiser part of me, the astounded part of me that your loving gaze still imparts upon me if only in aged memory. I miss you. And I love you. Always. Thank you for being in my life. I hope your life has been fulfilled with every dream you ever imagined. Wherever you are. And wherever you’ve been.