In the Season of Thankfulness

They called him Old Aaron

he used to sit in

the Arby’s parking lot

in summer

out there on the table

sun beating down

somtimes he would flash

a toothless grin

he sat on that bench

heat exploding

sun beating down

where did his memories go?

I often wondered if his stories

stayed with him

or was his mind

blank now

from all those years

of being caught

in that life

going downward

on a bitter slope

heat and chatter cold

trapped in a world

he will never leave

where do you go

when you have nothing?

over the years

when fear lurks

under a bridge

under a cardboard shelter

the silk-suited business people

can’t look

don’t want to see

a glimpse of themselves

in his blackened face

in his toothless smile

in his bitter struggle

to survive…

Farewell to a Friend

August is one of my favorite months in all its scorching glory, but this past month hung heavy like drapes of sadness overlapping memories. The first thing I had to cope with was my son growing up overnight and heading out into that big, monstrous world to compete with all those other young idealists, or maybe we could just call it “going to college,” nevertheless, a big step.

On the last day of this very emotional month, I received news of the death of a childhood friend. Like any bombshell that falls out of the sky on a regular Monday, news like that can rattle a person to their core. It's at once upsetting and unbelievable. I think back to the last time I saw her and the last time she messaged me to call, and I didn't take the time. Why must we always be so busy? So busy that we don't have time for things that really matter like a great friend? A friend that might need someone to talk to, maybe a small gesture that might mean so much to someone. 

Life is tough in general, even tougher for some people. Everyone has different challenges. Everyone makes mistakes. As we become older, we realize that perhaps the best feelings that fill a heart come from helping people and making this big circle of life connect to support each other.

With a heavy heart, I will say goodbye to my friend. I believe that her suffering has ended here. I believe that we go on. I will grieve for her family, her only daughter, and her little dog she left behind. I will bemoan, for a long time, not making the time to visit with her, to listen, to maybe help her sort out some of the future based on our kinship of the past.

So go now, dear girl

into that light

the day has mellowed

around you now

this bounded joy

endless dreams unfold

no more burdens, worries

or heartache

just stars

without limits

and love

without boundaries

a perfect lasting peace

calmness and serenity

and as you look down

and see me muddling

through this life

know how much

I love and miss you

and valued your friendship

Someday on that

distant shore

in an unknown place

a perfect retreat

I hope to see you

smile at me

like it's 1979 again

and maybe

we will laugh and sing

and drive your green Vega

in a city beyond

into another realm...

Rose Colored Glasses

You had to get out

those rose colored glasses

head down memory lane

thinking it sweet like molasses

How but how did these

people become strange?

Nope, you never imagined

how much they did change

Friends a long time ago,

friends no more

Couldn't get gone fast enough

couldn't find the door

Just kept thinking

is this really who?

Now a bit senile and crazy

and republican too!

The ones who used to live outward

expecting more

Now seem to be shallow

uncertain bores

The guru, the rocker,

where did they go?

Those rose-colored glasses

tell us it is so

The only thing certain

is unending change

Keep those past people

under wraps,

let them be strange

In today's world it is possible to find probably almost anyone that a person used to know.  I wrote this poem for a friend who looked up a few people from his past and found out the hard way that many times they are no longer the same people they once were.  That being said, do you think it might be best to, as they say, "let sleeping dogs lie...." ?

Wrecking the Empty Nest

Driving out west and confronting all that open highway provided me the perfect opportunity to think about the years, where they went, why they fell in a mountainous heap and sifted through my fingers like the white, swift sands of time. We drove onward as the highway cut through red canyons, and Voila!....it's exactly a Thin Lizzy song.

Somewhere out there is buried treasure forgotten by Coronado, or so the legend goes. Rattlesnake paradise, real working cowboys and Texas Tech spirit permeates this area as Tech flags hang from abandoned buildings, small gas stations in these tiny, almost ghost towns dotting the way to the campus.

It's official – I'm an Empty Nest Person, emphasis on empty. I took my young, handsome, remarkably suddenly grown-up son (when did that happen???) and deposited him on the grounds of this massive institution.

We have been through much together. Baseball games, basketball season and lots and lots of football. I wondered where was that 11 year-old who used to whine for every Pokemon card he could get his hands on? Skateboards, hungry friends, sleepovers and Advanced Reading tests that he was always behind with. Poof! It's all over. Many things finished, yet the future looming as if it was just right over the big, orange streak lighting that western sky.

The move-in was as massive as the campus, kids everywhere, parents with carts, a mini refrigerator bonanza. All of a sudden, it's dinner time, then I'm hugging a young man towering over me who used to be the little boy tugging at my hand. It's ok, it's life, you know. He's not the first to grow up, he won't be the last. Soon (I hope), I will be out of my semi-sobbing state and on to other things in my life.

I look around the campus at the buildings rising up from that flat land, the library in the distance, and I think about books. And possibilities. I think of my own school days in the library on a cold November evening, and a research paper I didn't care about as I read snippets of great literature flowing like a grand paper fountain at a small table where I could look out at the cold dusk as little freezing droplets of water reminded me that I should get going.

Then I was back on that highway again going home. I was sad but also happily optimistic for my young man with the promise of a bright future unfolding like that wide open highway that connects me to my only son.

[embed width="123" height="456]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pE67m_Hf4