on the dirt road to Cabeção
I slowed to a stop and whistled
the sole sheep on the road
heading toward then past
stopping to see what and who
then turning to go about her day
carefree in a hop-skip way
living in the white space
on the dirt road to Cabeção
I slowed to a stop and whistled
the sole sheep on the road
heading toward then past
stopping to see what and who
then turning to go about her day
carefree in a hop-skip way
I
the things celebrated here
are not the things celebrated there
how can she miss those things
when she rarely attended
doesn’t attend these things now?
II
an introverted extrovert is not
an extroverted introvert
one surrounds themselves with others
with forays at home here and there
while the other nests at home with
rare lunches and cancelled plans
knowing alone isn’t lonely
I was sleeping sound when
She startled me awake with
her wet nose booping mine
in the wee hours of light dark,
when the street light goes off
and the world is quiet and still
the best hours to cocoon
muscle-mem’ry reaching out
touching soft ears, I cooed
still half-slept, “ it’s okay…”
always to her I coo since her baby years
are unknown to me,
settling, roaming, settling, roaming
right-side left-side, back I stirred
She stirred, both of us stirring
arms legs here there, I accommodated
always I accommodate her changing places
while trying to sleep myself
checking the clock
turning the fan off then on
kicking covers off then on
an hour of sleep in ten minutes
then fifteen then thirty
then finally 6 am came ‘round
timing when it’s okay to rise
to eat to sleep all my life
setting times to do
breakfast eaten, NOW She sleeps
soundly curled into the nook
of my left ankle and rear-end
legs forming a tent for her always
I
and suddenly we are all fans
of the the dead and dying
II
I’ve over-outwardedly reached
and been singed buy a failure
to believe the best from others
as they take-take-tell assume
and others the best of me
when at my lowest kicked
while low and down
III
she takes her love away
and my lap gets cold
love-dust left
on my clothes clinging
when the words flew…
your mother wears combat boots
I always replied with “I wish.”
I
you are you, you know
your things not mine;
trust I know my things
are mine for the knowing
your way is your way
your way not mine
trust I know my way
is mine for the doing
II
took a long time to earn
all my skits-n-skats internal;
the collection of pinned things
and legs struggling not to, still
hindsight never woke
in wee hours to worky-work
the one to five jobs
and smith the words of learning
No, I did that. I. Did. That.
III
Mother never got mad
Mother never advised
Mother read her romance
Mother lit the gas
full grown and feeling
too much at four, at little fifteen
I figured the sums and deficits
for Father puzzling through
this and that floundering
for decades into overmorrow
of owning my knowing
and figuring what to do
“Took a world of trouble took a world of tears…” ~ Square One, Tom Petty