TINY HANDS

Now, shorn of indifference, I, the aged warrior, found my heart overgrown with memories. Tears come easily. Not the nurse’s hips but the infant’s tiny hands bid interest rouse and follow the rolling perambulator. The suffering of others is personal with me. Who would have guessed?

Fellowship of Learners

MY STORY

Does a grain of sand
Know about a beach
The meaning of my life
Lies far beyond my reach
Deep inside my bones
As sure as I am me
My story is somehow
The cause of all you see

UNSUNG HEROES

Once I thought on it

It seemed so unfair

That very short words

Are called upon

To carry such heavy loads

We, us, our, them

Crucial facts for sure

I doubt they were told

On leaving home they

Would be burdened

With such responsibility

Matters of great import

Perhaps life or death

Or the ruins of a ravaged heart

They seem so ill equipped

Their shoulders puny small

Their backs incapable of

But like heaving Atlas

They steadfastly bear

Their ridiculous loads

With not a word of complaint

GOOD MORNING

Today I just turned eighty
My musings are thus weighty
I know which today it is
By what my pillbox say it is
I never thought to trod the stage
So long as this held-over age
And though my carcass isn’t well
I think I’ll hang around a spell
For each new day unwraps a zing
I wo’d not a missed for anything

OTHERS

Why is sharing my world
With someone else
More pleasurable than
Savoring it all alone?
And why is it so hard to find
Someone with whom
To go to the beach today?

TOURISTS

Really, don’t you think
That it’s rather queer
That folks will fly
A thousand miles
To buy a souvenir.

Souvenirs are mementos
Of long absent years
When picturesque things
Once graced this place
That now sells souvenirs.