From He Who Sees and Feels

To She Who Lives

Eyes lit up

Like a Jack-o-Lantern

With all the glory

Of a much-loved holiday

And the story—

The story of who did this

And why…

And what happened

Leading up to it?

And the fire, the passion,

The glow, the aura—

The thing that makes children’s guts

Flutter with anticipation

And laugh with glee.

But these eyes are better than those

For they contain twenty-five years.

They contain turmoil and victory

And joy and sadness

And life.

They move with wonder

And widen with surprise

And belong to the land of the living

Rather than some plucked and mangled fruit.

They see and they seek and they see some more

And are all the better for it

As are we—

For in the looking,

In the process of it all,

There happen a great many things

Regardless of whether

What’s sought is found

For the seeking is the finding—

For all is good and all is worthy

In the eyes of one who knows

Why they’re looking.

To She Who Builds

A deck takes shape

Behind my childhood home

Where the crumbling patio used to be

And a woman looks on with satisfaction

And pronounces it good, this transaction—

For on it she will sit

With the fruits of life’s labor:

Two twenty-somethings

Home for the holidays,

Or a trio of long-known souls

Drinking glasses in hand

And smiles at the ready,

Or a dog who runs slower now

But wags her tail just as fast,

Or a small group of worshipers

Supporting and praying,

Some leaving, some staying—

All loving and saying,

“This is it, my friend,

And it is enough so don’t worry.

Though the memories may wander

Or shrivel and fizz,

It has not been in vain.

No life that loves is.”

To She Who Touches

A framed photograph hangs

On the white hallway wall

Next to several others.

To an outsider they may tell a story

Just as easily as they may not,

But were we to enter the image itself

Then turn one hundred eighty degrees

We would see a young woman,

Face concealed, hand on a trigger,

Looking and waiting—

Waiting for what?  I don’t know,

Perhaps a secret of the trade:

The lifting of a chin or

The picking up of a breeze or

The accentuation or elimination

Of some shade of contrast or

Some gut feeling that things are right

Or beautifully wrong or

Simply, mysteriously, incomprehensibly

Beautiful.

Such a person remains concealed—

For self-revelation is not written

Into the job description;

And yet

Such a person’s touch is felt

When the lonely are comforted

Or when the happy feel gratitude

Or when the forgotten are remembered.

When feuding friends realize

They’ve made it through worse,

When friends who’ve lost touch

Pick up the phone,

And when weary lovers rediscover

All those little things they love,

The young woman is at work—

And neither they nor she

May realize the extent to which

Their lives have linked,

But we might just if only

We could enter the image

And look around.

To He Who Ventures

A man sits in the passenger seat

Perhaps wearing a baseball cap

Or perhaps cap-less,

Wind tousling his hair,

Or maybe the window is up?

I am not sure, for I am not there.

No, this man has left me

Or rather we’ve parted ways healthily,

Each on a journey of our own now

Connected as family are,

But apart as are those

Who must yearn.

It is never too late

To get a fresh start

And all things are good

With ‘yes’ in your heart—

The future be damned!

It’s not even real.

Instead let’s travel, let’s love,

Let’s explore, let’s listen to the crickets,

Let’s watch the snow fall, let’s tell stories,

Let’s do all the things

We always said we would.