You are a friend I cannot know well
since most of your life is inner
and we have not shared it together
 
You are a friend whose image
each diamond visit has traced
in my mind’s window space
 
In your gray, honest eyes I have seen
a lover’s, a nation’s pain –
libraries of reading footnote
the universe you contain.
 
You are not sick, pitiful, lazy, 
philosophically misaligned,
to demonstrate our condition
as one we must meet resigned.
 
You are a daily example
of a truth that we choose to ignore,
the gentle, firm fight against verdicts
inexorable, imposed long before.
 
A Promethean, sea torn remnant
chained to a foreign shore –
I marvel the months that you question
and treasure the years you endure.
 
You are a friend for my fireside
if I had a hearth and a home
and a family, when you are alone.
 
In my house night would fall softly
and any with claim on me
would love you and respect you,
and your privacy.
 
                                                                        (1960s)   

Since the days when decadence
put the Puritans on defense
since the time when whaling grease
stole away religious peace
and New Englanders found God
incarnate in the Sacred Cod
we’ve established a tradition
that is leading toward perdition,
that is, giving lots of horse-lip
to pious ancestor worship.
 
But the crux of this mistake
follows from the choice we make
for we try to pin the godhead
on those forbears who are DEAD.
When the corpse is stowed away,
where the faults unseen decay,
reputation is decomposed
and diaries are recomposed,
Magna Opera of Puritan hypocrisy,
foundations of American democracy.
 
 But this tradition can make sense
if used with seemly reverence
by using you as proof alive
to show the world we don’t contrive
So today we congregate
to honor two who’re truly great
bringing offerings of our love
which make Heaven smile above
 
                                                            (early 1960s) 

 
I kneel and kiss
the springing earth
it is the same
though not the same
so be it still  –
of things which change
may first things
always grow
 
                                                                        (1970S ?)  

They tell me when we reach that night
upon that cliff beneath those stars
each man must sight the answer “if,”
must break his fall, must mend his scars.
Oh, we below may speculate
upon the paths, the rough or straight
but with a humble thankfulness
for the respite granted us.
 
                                                                        (1960s) 
 

I have become that neighbor lady 
 – in bathrobe
stepping from her door
– hair, gray,
walking to her garden
– seven AM
trowel in hand
– thinking no one sees her ?
moving a single seedling
– but – Spring is for everyone
 
                                                                        (1990s) 

“No man is an island,” said John Donne
No man is an island –  except Every One
wants to be, clearly shown
when we find an island and think to claim our own
 
Why is it that a bit of land, surrounded by the sea
a bit of strand, with water on the lee,
calls like John Donne’s bell,
to everyone, and me as well ?
 
When planning to hold love,
We first seek the Sun and Sky above,
then Safety against strife, behind a wall –
last, our human Love and its companions – all
 
                                                                        (1990s)

 
“Only temporary,” he said,
of his step down,
remembering my face
from his hometown
 
The life he now lives
with dole on the street,
worn clothes, long hair and cap,
making ends meet
          ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
We both moved to X-town
when his family house was bare
and this Prodigal then started 
on all that needed care
 
I’d walk and see a half-made hedge
of berries reaching sun,
but those he left unfinished
before the row was done
 
He dug the carpet of the lawn
and moved some piles of stones
then left the earth disrupted
and tools like heaps of bones
 
 Ramshackle work, neglected,
– some said this man took dope, 
lost, confused, perplexing,
till finally – no hope
 
I heard the neighbors’ gossip
of this man who lived near me,
he “Sold it for a million,”
this house which viewed the sea
          ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Once more, I’m in the city,
winter’s cold has come,
he has coffee for his comfort,
café, instead of home
 
And, “Only temporary,”
perhaps is what  he’ll say
the next time that I meet him
on a farther-down day
 
But, since we aren’t acquainted,
there’s nothing more to try
except to say a silent prayer
each time I pass him by
                                                                        (2020s) 

I knock at your door,
then open it myself
and cry, “Hello, HELLO ?”
I enter there unsure,
and hear you call, “HELP, help!”
you send a faint echo
 
I walk past your room to sit
and past your room to eat
and past the room to cook
scenes of neglect, unkempt, unfit,
to your place of sleep,
and further still must look
 
I find you fallen in the bath
lying in tub all tangled
moaning in distress
some mishap’s uncouth aftermath
with limbs still strangely angled,
your bowels a loosened mess
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I look at your bruised limbs
          and my limbs are trembling
I look at your body fluids
          and my stomach is churning
I look at your running tears
          and my eyes are streaming
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I, old lady, in my eighties,
would call for my own Rescue –
Instead I reach out my hand
to you, Old Lady, in your nineties,
the mirror of myself in you,
and say, “Good Day, my friend.”
 
I say that Help will come,
since your  body should not be moved
then I go to find a phone
and dial EMERGENCY,  9-1-1.
I will wait, to show you are Loved 
and will not be left Alone.
 
You, who told me once that Drink
was your only Friend in life,
and drew slowly into isolation,
were drunk before you fell, I think,
meeting this Friendly Foe last night,
ironic – saved by intoxication.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
For years I spoke of another Friend
who would let you Drink his Life,
discussions that never did go straight.
On this my reach was to no end
it seemed, but now I hold you tight.
“Close your eyes, we wait.”
 
I remember a night last year
driving a country road
alone, yet not Alone, in prayer,
when my wheels struck the corpse of a deer –
hit with speed, the car shook its load
and ascending, traveled through air.
 
How long that flight, I cannot tell.
In frozen fright the thought I found,
“Lord, here I am. I trust you’re near.”
My guardian angel helped me well
and set me safely on the ground.
The car still drove, I still could steer.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
I look at you in your bathtub
          and I see an Altar.
I look at an unwilling Victim
          and I see a Lamb.
I look at stubborn Denial
          and I see the Search for a Friend.
 
             ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
 
And I, old lady, would like to give
to you, Old Lady, my heart – I mean – 
not the sympathy that’s spoken of,
but help for hardship, goals to live,
against despair that’s visible, Help unseen,
this joy, this trust, this Love.    
 
                                                                     (for two Marys, both – 2000) 
 

Down in the hollow below the sprouting lawn
behind the small white house
under the drizzling sky and the yellow-green maples
he dirties his work-trousered knee
against the ground, as he weeds debris
between the iris, budding.
 
His body is strong and thin
his hair grey
his brow white
and his eye dim..
For inside the house his wife,
his fat, garrulous,  narrow-minded, childish,
loving wife
is slowly dying.
 
Later the iris are blooming,
the sun is shining on the front walk,
on myrtle and violets,
and tulips against the yew
and the white house.
In a moist wind of lilacs
he stands on the walk shaking hands, smiling,
with his grey hair, and his soft eye still dim,
on his flushed face a disregarded tear.
 
Up the stairs and inside the door
chrysanthemum and gladiola
rose and carnation
white, and smelling sweetly,
tagged with cards of regret
crowd the knick-knacks on the tables,
and echo the patterned slipcovers.
Futile efforts of friends to fill an empty house.
 
                                                            (for R.and D., 1970s) 

A hymn is the praise 
of God
with song; 
 
a song is the exultation of the mind
dwelling on eternal things, 
bursting forth in the voice.  [i]


[i] “Thomas Aquinas”.  en.wikiquote.org.  {https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas}  (accessed December 1, 2021).