Perspective
Fishing With Time
If I could capture time,
I’d grab it in my hands;
Fasten it to a fishing line
And cast it far from land,
Till it dropped to the floor
Of the deepest ocean.
Then we could gather on the shore
And pretend we’re fishin’.
Sometimes, We Rent
Today, she said, “Daddy, let’s play!”
I sighed and put my book away.
“Yippee!” she said, “Daddy, sit here.”
I plopped down and smiled anyway.
She put the puzzle together
Placing the shapes with pluck and cheer.
When the larger picture looked right,
She smiled and clapped, appearing dear.
But when the pieces weren’t aright,
She stomped and whined with all her might.
“It’s OK,” I said, “be patient.”
She pouted, her cheeks burning bright.
After a while, her resentment
Relented, and she showed the sense
We all need gain if we are meant
To see our free will sometimes rents.
Fight Against the Flesh
Verging death, she shows herself brave.
Surely, it is her soul
Revealing a piece of heaven
Urging us to the goal:
To fight the flesh in everything
Despite its weaponry
Even if we must fight ourselves,
Life’s fiercest enemy.
Mothers: We Give Thanks To Thee
If our lives could stand still
For a motionless day,
And the world’s heartache eased away
With time’s callous decay,
I’d make it Mother’s Day,
In honor of your will
To trip across valleys and hills
That we might feel fulfilled.
We’d keep you in safety
Far from obligations,
Interloping avocations,
And enemy nations.
Mothers of creation,
Full of variety,
You bear your children unselfishly.
So we give thanks to thee.
A Father To His Daughters – A Warning About Boys
Not until he reaches thirty
Is any man really worthy
Of romance or taking your hand.
Don’t give in to his entreaties
To bed him; you will only fan
The flames of his pride as a man.
Be aloof, distance is your need.
Curt and cool, make him understand
Your heart will not cede to his greed
But to kindness and noble deeds.
Be a pauper, poor toward him,
For many a cad will succeed
When he thinks you’re easy pickings.
But wearing scanty, tight clothing
Will only serve to draw him in,
And make his lust your only friend.
A Need in Poetry
Dancing like a Sugar Plum Fairy,
She turns with eyes fixed on me.
Looking down, I try write,
But she moves my head aright,
Until I am watching her again.
Now, she wants to play a new game,
And hide-and-go-seek becomes another name
For a father pursuing his smallest dame.
A moment later, she wants to play ball.
She lies on it, rolling around, trying not to fall,
Stopping only to lift her head again and again,
Reminding me with an endless refrain,
“Watch me, Daddy. Watch me.”
I look again at my little “B”
And capture her neediness for me
In a verse of poetry,
Saving it to memory
For the day I’m the one in need.
Junior Seau – Paying Respects
We grieved yesterday for his mother while she mourned his death
In her flowery dress.
After she asked the Lord why he took her son first,
We as parents knew her pain and why she burst
Into tears.
Forty-three years
Young was the great man when he breathed his last.
When they heard the news, all his friends asked
What happened to the man who made us laugh?
Was there a deeper hurt that he pushed down inside?
None of us will ever know why he truly died.
Still, we can pray for those who knew him well—
That they find comfort in the memories and stories they tell.
A great man has fallen by all accounts.
This we know, not by the girth of the man,
For it’s what was inside him that really counts,
What he added to our lives that made us fans.
Father Goose
When walking by, he honks his horn
At every passerby—
Anything to protect his young,
Lest they succumb and die.
When we walk too close, he let’s out a hiss
For causing him so much trouble.
My children laugh at all of this
But I draw them to eye level.
“Don’t get too close, or he might bite.”
They shrug me off for treating them the same
As the father goose, his young, might
For straying from his sheltering range.
The Game
We trained and trained,
Juggling and dribbling in driving rains.
We ran and stopped and ran again—
All in preparation for the great game.
When our team arrived on the pitch to warm up and train,
A hail of boos filled our ears.
Many mocked and jeered.
“You’re such and such;”
And “The game is ours this year.”
Our men steeled their nerves
And shut them out.
Let them yell and not fancy our side.
We’ll take the field like men with pride.
So we did
And vowed to win.
The game began at the official’s
Whistle.
The frenzied crowd went insane,
But playing on the road only fanned our flame
To win the year’s biggest game.
They controlled the ball,
And we gave chase.
Still they couldn’t score,
Nor could we.
The game went on into eternity.
Then in injury time
Our number ten,
God bless him,
Stole the ball
And dribbled through them all.
Their keeper swore and cursed his men.
We laughed, “Let him rant,” we all agreed,
Just give us the infernal lead.
Number ten sent a shot low and hard.
Their keeper dove.
We held our guard.
The crowd gasped.
The net caught the ball.
At last, at last,
We’d taken the game.
Our number ten
Merely grinned.
On our ride through the streets of Spain,
We forgot our pains,
Knowing we’d labored not in vain.
Rosa Lee
The snow falls
Kitten feet
On my windshield
While a cloud
Hides the sun
Like a shroud
Of your life’s passing.
Good Friday seems like a long
Time ago in this eternal moment.
But you are a miracle of our moments,
Our morale
Like this snow in mid-April
On a Carolina afternoon.
Excitement stirs within
As snowy newborns
Fall.
The windows fog
Inside the car
As we remember
What we have forgotten—
Family, you.
I can’t dial the defrost
Down
To the right temperature
On the glass
To let me
Or the back seat drivers
See our way.
We aren’t dressed
In black or gray
As we make our way
Back to the end
Of your trip
And the new beginning
That you have found
In God’s garden.
Your life grew
Abundant and beautiful.
Your final pruning job
Has begun—
Because now God has cut you closer
To Him, to eternal Life.
The drive home alone
This spring day
Is cold
But the falling
Of the “downy flakes”
On my windshield
Is so right
That I just stare ahead
Without ever touching
The wipers,
And I know
The flakes are Life’s feet
Coming down from heaven
Like the love
You shared
For us all.