Poetry: On the Lighter Side

SLATE RUN TALISMAN

I know a place
Across the creek
Where you can wade to on a hot
     summer's day
When the water runs low in its banks
Where you can sneak up to the
     train tracks
Staying hidden by tall marsh grass
And, when the train's not looking
Steal a penny onto its track
To be smashed flat when the train
Hurrying to be on time
Fails to see it lying there
Quietly
Waiting with anticipation
And to skip along with it in
     your pocket
Feeling the smoothness against
     your palm
Knowing its been to a place where
     you can't tread
Ah, the joys of youth
To take such delight
In flat pennies.


INITIAL EXPERIMENTS

We honor our youthful scientists who
     after careful experimentation
    deduced

That quartzite
     crushed ever so finely
     layered lightly atop
     garden soil
     containing only minimal amounts
     of sand or shale
     could be spread evenly over earth
     with a high oil content
     usually scraped from beneath the
     family car

To make the most wonderful
     mud pies.


TIMESCAPE

One has only to sit
along the shore
and gaze intently
at that unfathomable horizon
to become
a time traveler. 


ERIK

With a giggle
     he takes his rake and playfully
     scatters the leaves in all directions.
He looks like quite the character
     with his grandfather's cap
     six times too large for him
     haphazardly perched
     atop his head.
Stumbling on an untied shoelace
     he drops the rake and races off
     toward the trees
     an imagined safe haven
     from the friendly ghoul
     who gives chase.
But luck is not with him.
The monster charges and with a grin
     lifts him into the air
     scantly four steps from the shelter
     of a big maple tree.
Amid strains of laughter
     he and his grandfather
     roll onto the ground
     throwing the once-raked leaves
     toward each other,
Accumulating mud and grass stains
     on their knees.


GREG

I had to laugh
a moment ago
as I watched your tiny feet
still uncoordinated
and not too helpful
trying to run along the beach
joyfully chasing shells
before the waves
could carry them away
your little suit falling
down around your ankles

Yet I sense fear
as your watchful eyes gaze
over those crashing waves
never venturing too far
not wanting Daddy to wade
towards that watery horizon
as you sit
perched upon his shoulders

Fear not, little one
you may find as you grow older
the sea holds the answers
to many of life's questions
if you sit beside her long enough
and wait.


ALONE

Alone
I sit under a dark cloud of doubt
Yet, as I look up
I see untold billions of stars
Each glancing down with a contented glow
I wonder
Are we the only living things in this universe?
Small blobs of protoplasm bouncing around
Each tending his own business
With no concern for each other?

I know
That we are not the only things in this universe
It was not created for us alone
For as many stars there are, so too
May there be
Habitable plants.

Alone
I sit, yet not alone
For as I look up at untold
Billions of stars
I know there are untold
Billions of eyes
Looking back
At me.