The Guidebook Said

The guidebook said,
“Upon entering the park,
Go left.
People naturally go right.”
Seemed to work for us

Was that how
Robert Frost did it?
Went left instead of right
Avoided the crowd
And wrote a nice poem?

a child’s game

following Christmas vacation
our anticipation gradually builds
until the list is distributed
into our greedy hands

on a perfect white sheet
ditto, blue ink
the letters seem to melt,
fat and fading

I beg my mom to
take me to the store
to get the best cards
hoping for a comic favorite

socialism rules
it is a sum zero project
everybody gets one
enemies and friends

cards slip stealthily into
handmade, oversized pouches
covered in red, pink and white
taped to our desks

when the day arrives,
we watch the clock in agony
silently willing for time to pick up the pace,
for the party to begin

each year brings
a subtle awareness
that this is more than
a child’s game

Your Best Self

Allowing a machine—or
At least we think, hope it’s a machine—
To take on the role of deity
With guarantees of happiness
And compatibility?

I laugh at the TV commercials
Which try to verify the power
Of their system
Parading testimonials of couples
Engaged or even married for a year or two

They have not faced children
Or a family death
Or a job set back
Or even trivial things,
Like holiday traditions with in-laws

Go ahead,
Create yourself,
Your best self,
And push the button
Maybe you’ll get your “happily ever after”

But proceed with caution
See if you can make yourself forget
That your 97% match
Crafted their image
As well

To Be a Family

In our mid-twenties,
We had been married a few years
What comes next for fully-fledged adults?
We looked into adoption
(There’s much more to the story here
but we’re moving on)
Maybe it’d be more accurate to say,
Adoption found us

An overwhelming world before us
Of social workers and lawyers,
Phone calls and “visits,”
Paperwork and classes,
Anticipation and confusion,
Prayers and tears,
Choices and acceptance,
Waiting and wondering

Time passed until,
In a stretch of ten months,
We adopted two sons
Spring brought Kyle,
Who would later become
the younger brother of Michael,
the older son who joined our family
the next winter

Our boys are now men
With children of their own
When we reflect over thirty years,
We see a thread of
Grace in the fog
That guarded and guided us
To become a united tribe
And to be a family


this poem is posted as part of the High Calling focus on adoption & foster care this week. check out: http://www.thehighcalling.org/culture/random-acts-poetry-mistaken-identity

As a pack

We were like tribal nomads
forgetting what society dictated at school
Giving into instincts and urges,
we reveled in our primal roots

We wandered the streets and woods as a pack
with an unspoken, but agreed upon, leader
Until a mother called us back to civilization,
tempting us with a hot meal or comfortable bed

We’d gather on summer mornings
and set off for Mt. Baldy
This was our name for it
Although it was really a butte

We’d pack pocketknives, BB guns, and matches,
stopping at Kienows to trade empties
for Shasta pop and Hostess pies
(A nickel a can; brand names were ten cents)

We’d walk through the relatively new
suburban homes to the trail
And make our way past shady trees
to the clearing on top

We’d celebrate and reenact the battles
of cowboys and Indians or the “big” war
Imitating what we’d seen on TV,
hurling slurs we’d not admit today

Wounds, imagined and real,
were part of the game
Becoming lore for friends
and our yet unimagined children

Occasionally we’d go over the top
down to a creek on the far side
It was someone’s farm, I realize now,
to catch frogs or salamanders

Some we’d maim or kill in ritual fashion
which I’d watch with a fearful pain
No one noticed I was unable
to participate or protest

The surviving creatures came home,
displayed in jars or tanks on dressers and desks
Unfed and neglected in murky water
they would die with little recognition

Fish in a barrel

Lawyers are easy targets
For ridicule and jokes
(I know, I’ve told them,
And basked in the laughter)

Until you know one
Like my brother-in-law, Bob
The family calls him “a good one.”
A rare commodity to some
And words of reluctant
Acceptance for others
He does not help matters by
Doing that criminal defense stuff
When I read a story or watch the news
Seeing the carnage of another
Mad man (or should I say person)
Then Bob tells me the story
And I’m conflicted, wondering
What is truth and justice?
When humans play god.

recession redux

this recession’s an enigma
as I sit in a place
that survives,
wait, it thrives
selling little more than
coffee at four or five
bucks a pop

a constant buzz
from the tables
a crowd at the counter
while cars wait
at the window
filled with those
too harried to step inside

I remember history book pictures
and family stories
my great-aunt “Arkie”
wiping her plate clean
reminding me to not waste
“we never know
what will happen next.”