July 1
We’ve
done it before, we’ll do it again.
An
eight-hour drive to see our two,
Well with construction,
maybe ten.
We’ve done it before,
we’ll do it again.
When we’re finally there,
we say amen!
We persevere until we’re
through.
We’ve done it before,
we’ll do it again.
An eight-hour drive to see
our two.
Half Packed
Half packed to leave for
my trip
Off to Mesa then on to
Germany
Packing is something I’d
like to skip
Half packed to leave for
my trip
I know it will go by in a
blip
First, daughter and son,
we will see
Half packed to leave for
my trip
Off to Mesa then on to
Germany
Among Cousins
Every summer, as a child,
my family would vacation
in Delaware.
But one summer, we went to
Michigan
to visit with aunts, uncles
and cousins.
They would often visit us
when they came
to Grandma’s in Pennsylvania.
This was the first and
only time we went to them.
We played with our cousins
on their turf.
We’d go out on their
pontoon boat,
jump into the lake and swim
for hours.
We walked around their neighborhood
and met their friends, and
realized,
growing up in Michigan was
different,
and we were growing apart.
Elementary Teachers
First Grade Mrs. Adams,
More like a grandma than a
teacher.
I told her I had three and
a half sisters.
She laughed and told
everyone
I might have a sister or
brother.
Brother no way. I was
right.
My little sister came all
in yellow.
Second grade Mrs. Alberta.
She didn’t smile much.
I didn’t know much about
God,
but Mrs. Alberta said
He peeked in the back window
to see if we were behaving.
Third grade Mrs. Galbraith.
Pleasant and elegant, like
June Cleaver.
When I was getting all the
math problems wrong,
she discovered that I
couldn’t read the black board.
That summer, I began
wearing glasses.
Forth grade Mrs. Graff. She
smiled a lot.
She read stories like The
Secret Gaden.
She caught one of the boys
drawing a smiley face
on the black board with a
sponge.
We thought he was in
trouble.
She grabbed the sponge
and drew a smiley face
with curly hair.
Fifth grade Mrs. Donahue.
She had a loud, but nice, voice.
She’d see me in town and say,
“There she is with a book
again!”
I wonder if she expected
I’d be writing them some
day.
Sixth grade Mrs. Robinson.
A very sour lady.
On the rare occasion when
she smiled,
it looked like her face
would crack.
She didn’t like a poem I
wrote.
I didn’t think about
writing another one
until many years later.
Good or bad memories,
these ladies delivered a
basic education
like mama birds dolling
out worms,
in hopes their chicks would
fly off on their own.
I appreciate their influence.
There’s Mowing
and There’s Mowing
Growing
up on a large acreage in PA,
and with
Grandma’s equally large yard,
Dad had
this thing about mowing—
not too
early while it’s still wet,
not too
late when everyone’s tired.
That left
the hottest part in the afternoon.
And no
need for a riding mower
since he
had a wife and five girls to help.
So there
we all were sweating it out
every summer
pushing mowers
twice a
week or more since it rained
a lot in
Pennsylvania.
One
advantage:
Now that
I live in southwest Colorado,
in my
little yard, sparsely watered,
mowing is
a matter of zipping back and forth,
twice
monthly, in the coolness of evening,
and that
doesn’t seem so bad.
A View
from Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge
Don’t ask
me what the view
is from
Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge
in
Northern Ireland.
I just
know it’s about a hundred feet
above the
sea and rocky shore.
I got
myself over both ways
by saying
with each step,
“Take a step and don’t look down.”
“Take a
step and don’t look down.”
“Take a
step and don’t look down.”
