Terminal, she approached
death with the resolve to

live in the Wonder of Love
now and not seek the silly

notion of a safety net for
beyond the grave. She and

her husband held hands as
they yielded patiently, in

holy suffering, to the loving
arms of the Eternal Beloved.

An aura of peace enveloped
them as they beheld —

the hospitable wonder of it all.

*idea from a meditation by
Richard Rohr, April 5, 2019

The poet yearned for
the artificial
over the real —
the deteriorating
actual.

The man thought about
that and while
all things deteriorate

there is something
to appreciate

and celebrate —
life all of its stages

up to the grave
and, yes, beyond
for there memory
is found

and, in forgiveness,
what remains
is that which
is so fond,
so very fond.

While looking up a biography of
a poet, he came across a site
with a reputation score. What?
A reputation score? Is nothing

sacred? This one popped up on
Deborah’s birthday.  Happy
birthday, Deborah, 68. She scored
a 3.2 out of five. The good news

is that she is over fifty percent,
has racked up plenty of interactions
by age 68 and so maybe 3.2 isn’t
so bad for all that. The bad news is

that by 68, she still has people who
hold grudges or animosity after all
those years maybe dating back

decades and have still not forgiven
Deborah or perhaps the evaluation
is done by faceless, anonymous
persons using some sort of new

fangled algorithm to size up or take
down Deborah. Maybe the message
comes from God, “Deborah, oh, dear
Deborah, you only scored 3.2 out of 5.

The good news is that it isn’t 3.2 out
of 10. You’ve got little time left
(sorry to spill the beans so to speak),
dear, to clean up your act, so without

airing all your dirty linen, I would
just advise that you start treating
your grandchildren better than you
have treated your children and, I

assume that by your age, you have
stopped cheating on your husband,
oh, and about those fraudulent checks…,
Best wishes.” Holy Cow! Everything,

absolutely everything is quantified,
evaluated and scored in a reputation
number more indelible than one’s high
school IQ test score, which you took

on the day following your mother was
hauled off to jail on a manslaughter
charge for doing in your dad. He got
to thinking about what his score might

be and then he heard the ominous,
gravelly, gurgly call from the depths,
“Sorry, Charley.”

It didn’t go well with
the new primary.
He worried people
would think it was
because the primary
is a female, but
that’s not it. It is
simply oil on
water. Someone
said, “Her style
is not the same
as her predecessor,”
as if to excuse
her behavior.
He said, “That’s
strike two. If it
gets to three
then I’m gone
with the wind
and with Rhett
Butler, I will
say, ‘Frankly,
my dear, I don’t
give a damn.”
The primary’s
assistant said,
“Actually, you
should go now.”
All he could
think to say was,
“Thank you.”

There is a difference between
monologue and soliloquy.

At root they sound the same
but they don’t play the same game.

The soliloquy
is ever so sweet to me

but the monologue?
Along it prosaically slogs.

The divine soliloquy of the Dane
sounds poetically poignant if a tad insane.

Most preachers  preach dreary monologues,
which go on way too long.

Would that a preacher quote                                          
the very pleasant notes

of Shelley, Keats or Joyce                                         
upon which to rejoice.

It might scandalize the parishioner
but others might stand and cheer

for the preacher who sees
the poetic beauty in soliloquies

and avoids the prosaic slogs
of most monologues.

You’ve heard about a bad hair day.
Well, this is about a bad April Fool’s Day.
It is the day he died twenty-six years ago.
And as I sit playing Solitaire, he sits next to me.
That’s not an April Fool’s joke —
My playing Solitaire and him sitting there.

I have this thought I share anew.
It is a thought of you.
I wonder if its something I dare.
Will you even care?

It is my insecurity.
You are very pretty.
We’ve known each other for a year,
my lovely Lab so dear.

After reading an online essay and the comments on the essay by two people disagreeing with each other about the author’s intent in a particular sentence, I tried a paraphrase of the line in question, which was from a hymn quoted in the essay as a way of interjecting an olive branch into the online conversation. The opposing opinions had to do with the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice in the “complete and total” defeat of evil. One reader affirmed this and the other opposed it because horrible suffering is evidentiary in all of life:

In suffering, dying and in the gift to his disciples of the experience of his risen presence, Christ defeated the power of evil to extinguish faith, hope and love in the midst of the sufferings of the creation. As the root of the word patience is “the quality of suffering,” we “wait with patience (suffering in many forms) our adoption as the children of God.” This is done in faith, hope and love. We wait, we suffer, for the culmination while experiencing the “fist fruits” of God’s eternal love and because of the experience of those “first fruits” we are enabled and empowered and commissioned to enter into the suffering of others knowing that the existential power of evil ultimately to destroy love, indeed, has been defeated.

The patient, running out
of patience, suffering from
understandable impatience,
stood at the open door
of the exam room
wondering.
A half an hour late,
the physician
gave a high-five sign
in the hallway
and charged into the
room avoiding
a collision with
the door frame like
Gail Sayers dodging
three-hundred pound
linemen, then sliding
into his chair and
rolling up to the now
sitting impatient patient
to within an inch
of his face, to
which the patient
reflexively put up
his hand like a Sayer’s
stiff arm to the
secondary. And that
was the start of the
exam which ended
almost before it
began without a touchdown.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re a half hour late
and I’m paying for this
and you just went from
lost in outer space to
ground zero in a nano
second and I’m just
trying to get some
personal space and
breathing room.”
Did he really say that
to the physician?
Yup. The rest of the
exam didn’t go any
better but the patient
did get the smidgen
of information from
the physician that
he came for in the
first place — yes,
he would live,
at least until the
next time he would
encounter the
half back doc.

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’,
clickety clack, clickety clack —
One’s about movin’ cattle,
the other a song ‘bout a railroad track.

These lines
from his youth
stick in his mind.
They formed his teenage truth

— one a folk trio
the other a cowboy show.
So he got a guitar
and an old banjo.

Practiced, practiced, practiced
chords and arpeggios,
cowboy boots and hat
on the stage he would go.

Years, years and more years
have gone by.
The fingers have arthritis
and there’s dimming of the eye.

Musical instruments are gone
but from the rockin’ chair, he’s havin’ fun.
He  still sings with the Kingston Trio
and punches doggies on Rawhide reruns.