From My Window …

… I see     I feel

Morning sun

Touching the life of the

Sycamore’s new leaves

A hyacinth not yet in

Bloom

From my window

I see other windows

On a hill across

The Riparian Way

Like tiny lighthouses

They shine beacons of light

To me

As night closes day

 

From my window

I hear sirens on El Camino Real

Their sound grows fainter

As they move farther away

Then one abruptly stops

Called here

To the community

Where I live

 

From my window

I send a prayer

  

Too often

Someone I know

Someone I don’t know

Passes away

Death is no stranger here

But life is far more familiar

I feel the void

When faces go missing

I never get used to it

Life lives with death

Two parts of the whole

 

Every fall

From my window

I watch the sycamore’s leaves

Dry out

Their color green changing into

Old gold

Falling to the ground

In graceful slow motion

Then welcoming her new leaves

Every spring

 

The sun rises

Over the distant hill

Goes down over the distant

Ocean

Moon rises

Over the distant hill

Sets in her own time

Over the distant ocean

It is an orderly Universe

I closely observe

Closely observe

 

From my window

Reconciliation

Mother

When he went away and left you

He left me too

And we lived together

You and I

One woman     one child

And I wanted to grow up

To love you both

But you’d come home

From a job that drained you

That made you curl up tight

Inside yourself

I knocked and I know

You tried to let me in

While he went away

And sent letters of love to me

And I cried to live with him

I didn’t understand

 

My best friend told me this

People say your mother

Has a chip on her shoulder

I didn’t understand

 

Believe me Mother

When I tell you

I don’t remember

That time in your life

When you were ill

When your legs were weak

And you used a cane

When your eyes saw double

And the threat of disease

That would waste you

Hung over us

A girl of fourteen

Awake     awake     whose eyes

Could see     whose brain

Could think

But Mother I don’t remember

I just don’t remember

 

Mother

We are healed now

And the years between

Have made us friends

I need you Mother

When you die

No one else can care as much

—1975

The Innocents

I open wide

A special door

To a special room

In my heart

For children

I do not know

But whom I love

Children abused

Abandoned

Ones made to

Disappear

Children caught

In war

Innocents maimed

Innocents dying

Bless their souls

Oh bless them

 

They are like a field

Of flowers

Scattered in the wind

Some survive

To grow again

Others never return

Leaving their presence

Their beauty

To remain in my

Mind

Live in my heart

Never

To forget them

—2011