I prefer the silent passing of time
to the intrusive timbre of chimes.
The slow sun, the moon's wax
and wane and all its seasonal hues.
Among the growing list of dead
are Uncle Roy, his son Donald,
J.B., a friend and student lost
in the Everglades crash, Fran
who left a legacy of dance.
Include, too, friend and neighbor
William Pettay.
                                 Still living,
though, Aunt Lorene, born 1916.
Hair piled white as a cumulus cloud,
Jesus her soul's nectar, she's a
country woman born and bred,
as she bred her own, her man
long dead but dry as a drought-
stunted field when he passed on,
thank the Lord and the local AA.
At the family reunion she's the one
who stops at every table to say hello,
to say your name, perhaps her way
of counting the living.
                                 I suspect
Aunt Lorene prefers chimes
to the silent passing of time,
the joyful noise of clap-along hymns
to the slow sun, the melodic keys
of a weathered upright praising God
as I praise Aunt Lorene for being still
among the living, our names on her lips
a blessing under a tree-ringed shelter
on a June Sunday just off I-64
in Holland, Indiana.

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My poems and photographs have appeared in The MacGuffin, Texas Poetry Journal, Ellipsis, Poems Niederngasse, Poetry Midwest, The Sun, The Ledge, Triplopia, and Diner. I also have poems coming out in Talking River and Say This of Horses from Iowa Press, an anthology scheduled for publication in 2007.
E-mail: snapshot at insightbb dot com
 

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autumn 2006 | kaleidowhirl