Category: grief

  • Aviary hymns

    What is gone is not quite gone It lingers in the air ____ I’m searching for that first bird song Its memory somewhere deep inside Other birds sing in gardens But it’s never quite the same I’m searching for that first bird song Its memory somewhere deep inside ____ What is gone is not quite…

  • Beach trip, May 2025

    Eons ago, we traded wings for speech and legs to run and now we spend eternity regretting our choice. ____ On our last trip to the beach pelicans flew single file off shore. Seagulls hung in the air waiting for food to drop; shiny grackles brazenly stole food from wagon stashes of tourists. An attractive…

  • Jasmine’s dogs

    Bobber lies on the couch next to me Hazel at my feet. Soon I’ll attach leashes to collars take them outside. Let them walk, defecate in the yard scent the trunk of trees. We mourn the empty loneliness together awaiting her return. I pet them on the head, thankful they don’t cry or talk. I…

  • Cattail tales

    dragonfly swoops gathers mosquitos in its maw other mosquitos oblivious death passed them by 7-3-25

  • The color blue

    in dappled shadows I sit breeze wicks my sweat without sunlight shadows would not exist thinking how blue is Jasmine’s favorite color It’s too soon to look up at the sky 7-1-25

  • Fractures of light

    sometimes, I look at your picture and see fractures of light streaming through 6-24-25

  • Long distance call

    Hi Mom, talk louder our connection is weak. I hear Dad in the background put him on speaker. Jasmine was telling us the other day that she missed coming to visit you. Has she stopped by yet? When she does, give her a hug and tell her we love her. She left before we got…

  • untitled

    I want to live to be two hundred, hidden away in some old folks’ home, dragged out on my birthday to pose for social media. A dried up old prune nobody really knows; no cherished memories of me taking them for walks, candy in my pockets to share away from their mothers’ prying eyes. Just…

  • Gibson’s war

    After the war, After bodies were cleared, Mass graves dug up, Photographed and catalogued. After the rubble was pushed aside, and reconstruction begun, You found an abandoned instrument with broken strings. Because this was all you could handle and it did not stink of death, You thought of all the songs it had sung Cradled…

  • Goodbye to a friend

    morphine drip prescribed soul flashes light in the dark outside I sit train wails goodbye 5-11-22