Gone Now

They’re down there in the ground
side by buried side,
a grandma and a grandpa,
under Iowa scorch
and drifting snows.
In old habits
that die hard,
do they bicker
while the robin hops
above them
in the morning dew?
Does she cradle
her mixing bowl
in heaven,
weaving lattice
across a rhubarb pie
destined for the VFW of the clouds?
With so many mouths to feed there,
does Grandpa get a slice?
And does he still hear
the sergeant’s call to march,
step by booted step
the breadth of France
that one day took his leg
but not his will
or the song he sang
as he twirled me through the kitchen
past the cooling pies.

Stony

Sun dances on water
prevailing winds blow east
but it’s June so it’s cold
two days in
to five generations back
on Stony Lake.
A white owl
flecked like birch,
watches.
A painted turtle, urgent,
leaves gentle waves
to deposit eggs
buried with back feet.
Never laying eyes on them,
She abandons them to their fate.
Her great, great grandmother’s grandmother
once did the same
right by the house
that stands by the dock
on the gentle slope to the woods
that grew the branch
where the owl waits.
Poison ivy finds me,
dotting my ankle,
pink already with Calamine,
the color of summer.
Voices drift
off the water
up and down the lake.

Shouting children
at summer camp,
orange life preservers
high and tight
under sunburned cheeks
and pot-bellied fathers
instructing reluctant sons
to bait a hook.
The buzz of Sea-Doos
a clock to announce the weekend.
In the silence in-between
only trills
and quacks
and honks
of
wild birds
leery and shy.
Flags flap and flutter
from pole
and screened-in porch
right by the back door,
never locked.
Under this veil
is a heartbeat
steady
familiar
resounding
and
true
as the prevailing wind
skipping off the water
blowing east.

The Fallen

They fall like
autumn leaves each spring
to the unyielding
finite bottom of the world
which does not lift them up
and flush past their
beating wings
but sucks them down
in an unrelenting magnetic pull
into your range of influence.
They drift down
from the Spanisch tiles
too wild and brave for their nests
until you,
without expectation or gratitude,
their survival forced upon them,
become guardian of their
flight.