The jelly-like goo
pulls away from my retina.
A light show
flashes and arcs across my left
eye, spilling torn tissue flotsam—
space debris strewn
about my visual universe.
Holy shit.
Score another point for
aging, further need for living
a fierce
grace.
(No. 90 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
My morning exercise
includes repetitively curling a pair
of 20-pound dumbbells.
I stand in my Jockey “Slim Guy”
underwear envisioning myself a tall,
mesomorphic, light-skinned black man.
My muscles don’t bulge
but gracefully arrange themselves
in fluid proportions.
This helps.
Today I curl before the bathroom mirror,
to confirm my long-held image.
Bad move.
Faltering, I quickly step away,
to become the svelte,
cat-like jungle man
who I
am.
(No. 70 in a […]
for Andrea
Swimming laps,
I shared the university men’s pool
with a small child and his dad.
Near the end of the three-meter plank,
the boy confronted an abyss.
Somewhere below, his father treaded
encouragement.
I held to a gutter, resting,
watching.
The boy pulled
at his tiny butt cheeks,
feet churning on the rough surface.
Forty years later
I still feel that splash
as I seek the courage
to love […]
Caitlin, a down-winder,
lay dying in the hospital.
Who thought of it first?
Let’s do the wedding now!
Scott was there, license
in hand. Witnesses?
Here’s Jan, visiting from our office,
and Caitlin’s oncologist makes two.
I have my Universal Life minister
certificate. Afterward we cried,
but then Scott went out
for a six-pack and we toasted
the newlyweds. No beer for
Caitlin, but she […]
From a tentative reference
in a tangential discussion
a confidence is taken,
a truth revealed.
A work mate has leukemia.
Churning, I must share
this news with a trusted
one. Hesitantly, I speak
in a darkened room.
Soon we will all
know.
(No. 74 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
The tape on my right arm
protects the needle hole from invasion.
Still warm, my blood’s en-tubed within the clinic.
I sit across the street,
deliberating over coffee and scone.
Good thoughts, good friends, diet and exercise
can’t save me from
an errant thyroid,
a rebellious prostate gland,
and other debilitations.
Days will pass, this purgatory will end.
Results will wash up with other data.
I will […]
Hike the Upper Dungeness Trail,
then up a ridge west of Camp Handy.
Steep old fisherman’s track
under July afternoon sun.
Thirty steps, gasping stop, thirty more,
my old legs and asthmatic lungs struggling
to keep up.
Admire huge tree boles and lush delphinium
before starting again.
Then Goat Lake at last,
air brilliant and snowmelt bubbly.
Bugs not bad, good night’s sleep.
But say, just how […]
Past Last Water Camp, my dog and I
wind up the north trail,
wading deep sprawls of snow
obscuring the way.
Left behind is my city job
and the softness of a woman at dawn.
Yet worries swirl
as I ascend through mist.
I cough a blaze onto the snow,
a shock of redness.
My lungs may be the end of me.
Route finding now, I […]
Dr. Huang is a cheery fellow,
and today we talk politics
as he zaps my meridians
with #.005 surgical steel.
“Politics is like a toilet,” he notes,
“smelly, but we need it.”
“Like making sausage,” I offer,
“you don’t want to see
what goes into it.”
Dr. Huang continues,
telling me how
blood sausage is made.
He swirls my energy a last time,
turns off the light, and
I […]
