Auld Lang Syne is one of the songs I sing to Jack at night to help him sleep. Such a beautiful tune.

Auld Lang Syne

by Jennifer L. Knox

 

Dad couldn't stop crying after Kathy moved him into the facility. When she came to visit, he'd cry and say he wanted to die. He said the same thing to the nurses. This went on for about a month until the doctor put him on an antidepressant especially for Parkinson's patients. The next time Kathy came to visit, she found him in the cafeteria, talking to some of the other residents and not crying at all--just enjoying his lunch. When it was time for her to go, he didn't cry, but rather calmly escorted her to the car. "Do you like this car? My wife and I were thinking about getting one," he told her. "That's very interesting," Kathy smiled, "because I am your wife." Dad chuckled, "Is that right?" He squinted over the palm trees towards the freeway. So many cars. Busy busy busy. "Well, we'll see you later, then," he said, and shook her hand firmly, the way he'd learned to do at Rotary. What funny new friends he was making. 

 

 

Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer L. Knox. Used with permission of the author.

About This Poem 

"Near the end of his life, my father proved to be, at his core, a very polite, chivalrous man. He walked the halls of the facility where he lived, introducing himself and shaking people's hands as he had done at Rotary meetings. He complimented the nurses, 'You have a lovely figure.' He could also eat an entire two-pound box of See's Candies in an afternoon, which requires considerable effort with stage five Parkinson's disease."

--Jennifer L. Knox 

for Friday

 (photo by Scott Snyder)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

friends and poems = true soul food

Friend,

by Jean Valentine

You came in a dream, yesterday 

--The first day we met 

you showed me your dark workroom 

off the kitchen, your books, your notebooks. 

Reading our last, knowing-last letters 

--the years of our friendship 

reading our poems to each other, 

I would start breathing again. 

Yesterday, in the afternoon, 

more than a year since you died, 

some words came into the air. 

I looked away a second, 

and they were gone, 

six lines, just passing through.

for Adrienne Rich

stars

3 a.m....or is it 4?
nobody knows,
'cept the wee creature
who is wailing,
protesting Daddy's too-long absence

i step outside
and there above me
shines every star in the universe
sparkling like gems
across the heavens

did God turn down the lights
on this sleepy town?
there are stars
i've never seen before
i close my eyes, they are still there

this night is made
for vibrations of love, word made flesh,
what needs to be said
utterances of greater
truths, silence brightened up

it's 4 a.m.
he settles at last
but i am awake now, in
parts long slumbered
insides spilling forth like stars


acs
10.2.13

garden tender

can you love a woman
just from watching her garden?
how does she know
  what to plant, when to
  rotate, which will come up next?

all summer, and now late September,
always something popping up to delight.
i see her diligent
  with her Rototiller
  tending, loving, tender-loving.

Subaru, hatch open,
tools ready at the hand.
it is Fall.
  all the gardens are drooping, dying
  sunflowers surrendered, kale overgrown

chard long past, too high,
no longer gentle for eating.
weeds, straw grass have overtaken sweet harvests
  but Mary's garden, full of jewels--
  deeps reds, gold bursts and blush globes.

sometimes i think she plants
just for my amusement.
she knows i loiter, linger.
  does she think of my attention?
  i think this might be love.


acs
9/25/13

So beautiful...and I have always loved Rita Dove

Borderline Mambo
by Rita Dove
 

As if the lid stayed put on the marmalade.
As if you could get the last sip of champagne 
out of the bottom of the fluted glass.
As if we weren't all dying, as if we all weren't 
going to die some time, as if we knew for certain 
when, or how. As if the baseball scores made sense 
to the toddler. As if the dance steps mattered, or there's a point 
where they don't. For instance wheelchair. Heart flutter. 
Oxygen bottle mounted on the septuagenarian's back 
at the state ballroom competitions--that's Manny, 
still pumping the mambo with his delicious slip 
of an instructor, hip hip hooray. Mambo, for instance,
if done right, gives you a chance to rest: one beat in four. 
One chance in four, one chance in ten, a hundred, as if
we could understand what that means. Hooray. Keep
pumping. As if you could keep the lid on a secret
once the symptoms start to make sense. A second
instance, a respite. A third. Always that hope.
If we could just scrape that last little bit 
out, if only it wouldn't bottom out 
before they can decode the message 
sent to the cells. Of course it matters when, even though 
(because?) we live in mystery. For instance
Beauty. Love. Honor. As if we didn't like
secrets. Point where it hurts. Of course we'll tell.

About This Poem

"I'm a fanatic ballroom dancer, and Latin rhythms are usually invigorating. But I find mambo simultaneously joyous and poignant for two reasons: first, the pause in the rhythm (stop!-2-3-4) suggests that something's always missing--a hole in the fabric of celebration, perhaps. And, secondly, the memory of Manny dancing with his beautiful young instructor, oxygen tank on his back, suggests a way to plug that hole, even though we know that some patterns--disease, age--are relentless and will grind on long after the dance is done." 

--Rita Dove

Your 50th

"For Your Birthday"
by, John O'Donohue

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.

When desolations surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the gray wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world's waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.

On the echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart;
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.