We would not have known
the delectable morsel
taken in flagrante delicto
by the Chocolate
Lab was the
irresistible, forbidden fruit
known as his own backyard
poop,
but, later in the house,
as he sat so still,
we smelled the breath
that was bad enough to kill
a buffalo in its tracks.
And so, my wife, who is really quick,
gave the dog a Listerine breath strip.
The dog’s lips smacked
and we made a pact
to watch the dog more closely
when he was out back.

There are those days
of reprieve
when the schedule
behind, you can leave.
Outside tasks are
up to date
and rain declares
you may sleep late,
if you wish or
just sit in the dark
with a single light
and a detective mystery
to delight.
Andrea Zani’s Concerto #5
floats in the air
as you relax in your
Herman Miller chair.
The Chocolate Lab
lies at your feet
and glances up
as your eyes do meet
and for a fleeting
moment, in a face,
you are bathed with
unconditional grace,
and in spite of the news,
which beats relentlessly
at the door,
you are at peace for
a little while more.

He sits by the pond and looks
around at the flora and fauna.
The birds now trust him enough
to ignore him as they go from
hiding in the Arborvitae to bath-
ing in the waterfall to eating at
the feeder. Now that the water
temperature in the pond is above
forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the
fish move around some, venturing
to the surface to catch a nibble of
this or that, sometimes spitting it
right back out. They even trust
the man to toss them a couple of
hands full of fish food every now
and then and go back to swimming
and doing whatever else it is that
fish do in the confines of a one
thousand gallon pond with a pump
big enough to turn the water over
every few hours. Sometimes deer
stop by during the wee hours of
the morning and, apparently, a fox
used to do the same before it died
of unknown causes right in the man’s
yard. The neighbor found it and
thought it appropriate to bury it
right where he found it. So far,
the Chocolate Lab who trusts the
man but doesn’t ignore him as the
birds and fish do, in fact quite
the opposite, hasn’t noticed the
dead fox. For that, the man is
extremely thankful. A black bear
was sighted ten miles north of the
man’s property, farthest south ever
for a bear sighting. He imagines
the bear will be a guest in the
neighborhood one day. He’ll see
how fast the trust goes away.

The priest, teacher, scholar wrote of
signposts on the way to God.
The reader thought about
such signposts —

a father whom the reader as a boy
had worshiped without knowing it
until, ironically, the day the father
walked out the door and stepped
in front of a train leaving the boy
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

a mother who did all the right things
when the boy was little but who began
to show a profound jealousy, a
covetousness even, of, of all things,
that very boy and his sister,
leaving the boy
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

a teacher, a mentor, a father figure
a lovable, Falstaffian professor of
Shakespeare who didn’t believe in
God at all leaving the man/child
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

his wife, his love, who died at forty-
nine of a cerebral hemorrhage, down in
a day while they were away leaving
the broken-hearted husband
to wonder, wonder, wonder —

on the journey to or from God with
broken sign posts along the path.
And in the shock, sadness, tragedy
and mystery of it all,

was Grace, behind, surrounding and
ahead, just around the corner
beckoning, always beckoning
as the man, now gray, continued
to wonder, wonder, wonder.

On Sunday morning he wrote a piece
about suffering, memory and the
heart-rending music of Samuel Barber’s
Adagio and then in the evening,
around the pond and waterfall,
he listened to Susannah McCorkle on
the outside speakers and was moment-
arily transported back just a few
weeks to driving up and across Arizona
and then straight across New Mexico
on Route 60 to, among other great jazz
lines, “I don’t want to set the world
on fire; I just want to start a flame
in your heart.” He stared into the
flames of the fire pit for a moment
and then at his wife whose face glowed
in the firelight. They caught each
other’s eye and smiled the smile of
deep knowing and gratitude. He started
to cry again but for very different
and equally important reasons.

On a Sunday morning before
he, his wife and the Chocolate
Lab go for a jog, he sits read-
ing poems and meditations
and then hears Samuel Barber’s
Adagio for Strings. His should-
ers slump; his face quivers as
the tears begin to rise; the
memories, ever present and ever
so deep rush to the surface
pushing the tears up and out;
he lowers the book to his lap
and catches his breath in the
halting, gasping sigh of a
child after a big cry.

While driving on the
hostile roads,
everything bad that
we are comes out —
on the roads. In
human discourse
we watch what we
say, but when we
are behind the
wheel
surrounded
by three, four,
five thousand
pounds of plastic,
aluminum, steel,
we say and do
exactly what we
want to do which
is to say
get the hell out of
my way;
as I was say-
ing, everything
bad that we are
comes out that way,
while driving on the
hostile roads. Whatever
happened to the
Sunday drive
over kindly roads?
What is happening?

It’s the Merry Month of May,
with May
poles for virgins and May-
flies for the fishers
out there
and it is warm enough now
for a game of Mother May
I, and being the first
weekend in May,
the Kentucky Derby is
only a day away,
but I
always enjoyed, far and away
more than the
boys of Saturday,
attending the
Kentucky Oaks,
the running of the fillies,
which always takes place
on the Friday
before the Derby
and because
this is that Friday,
the first of the Merry
Month of May,
I won’t be attending
because we live 300
miles away,
so, I’ll make do
and head out to
Happy Hour on
this the first day
of Tulip Time
(hard to get a rhyme),
but I will imbibe
in the city
up or down the
road from Tulip Time
town, because it
is just too crowded
around town
this first day of May
and for the
following seven days
of the Merry Month
of May,
and if you
are around Tulip Time
town, watch out
for the traffic. I’m
not kidding; there
are a lot of really old
people walking and
driving around town
and that can be
a lethal combination
considering
they are all staring
at Tulips (in a good year
and stems in
a bad one) and not paying
attention to where they
are going. It’s such a scary
thought, this time in May,
in Tulip Time
town, I could only come up
with this tortured rhyme,
and the virgins, few that
there may-
be, keep going round and
round and round the May-
pole tree.