THE TROUBLE WITH TIME

Time often makes me skip 1 of the day's 3 meals

and reminds me to take only 10 minute showers.

It put 19 spots on my hands, makes me squint a lot,

and filled my head with a 100,000 wiry white hairs.

It compels me to hurry out the door by at least 8,

insists I pay the mortgage by the first of the month.

It sends me off to bed by 11 in order to be sure and

get at least 6 hours of sleep for the next work day.

It forces me to teach 43 minute lessons in school.

It tells me to stop reading on page 156 for dinner.

It demands I quit writing to answer the telephone.

It makes me turn off a game in the seventh inning.

It gets me thinking about my 2 week vacation and

once I get there, it sends me back home. It has me

contemplate next year’s trip and what it will be like

in 15 years when I retire and I’ll travel so much more.

It nudges me along every five minutes in museums and

has me checking my watch while hiking on nature trails.

It tells me, have one for the road and turn out the lights.

It keeps me from staring too long out my back window

at blue jays, cardinals and crows. It won’t permit me to

grow an herb garden, a lilac hedge, 6 to 8 tomato plants,

or a row of 5 or 6 dogwood, cherry and magnolia trees.

It forces me to run around 4 weeks before the holiday,

then suddenly it’s over. Only 364 shopping days left!

It quickly aged our cat and dog, now all they do is sleep.

It takes me back to a specific candy store or pizza place

from my youth and has me craving cherry snow cones.

It stole my Gunsmoke lunchbox, baseball cards and

Fantastic Four comic books. It sold my Stingray bike

at a yard sale and it makes me cry while driving when

certain old songs from the 60’s or 70’s come on the radio.

Time made me say goodbye to friends and coworkers.

It took my grandparents too soon and my Dad at age 60.

In 3 years, it’ll send my only son away and off to college.

Then I’ll wait the 16 weeks until his first semester ends.

One day, time will run out for me and in 2 days I’ll have

a birthday, I’ll be 16,437 days old! But who’s counting? 

HORSE SHOW, 1989

Crowds of people who all seemed to know him,

mingled and exchanged strong handshakes with

each other as they entered the fairground gates.

Riders strutted in fancy hats, ties and dress suits,

a mixture of old England and early plantation times.

They weaved through a lot filled with horse trailers,

Big Chevy Crew Cabs, and waxed and shiny Dualies.

Farmers, merchants, horse lovers, and their families

rushed to the bleachers at the edge of the grass field.

We headed to the concession sheds to find dinner.

Great northern and navy beans in their own sauce,

a thick white gravy from slow cooking all day long,

heaped in deep round styrofoam bowls, a huge slab

of Vidalia onion on top, a block of cornbread for a lid.

“Dry and gritty, it’ll scratch the throat as it goes down”.

He pointed out Master and we cheered as Mike rode

the shiny black stallion with its chain ankle bracelets.

Head up, throwing legs high, showing off, “the big lick”.

In those stands that night I discovered Southern culture,

Tennessee Walking Horses and my father, the horseman.

BOONDOCKERS

On Saturday morning I jumped out of bed,

put on my husky Toughskins, tube socks,

a Flyers ski cap and a red plaid flannel shirt.

I laced up my boondockers and headed off

to the woods of my youth in South Jersey.

I heard men laughing, the chainsaws buzzing,

logs clunking into the bed of an old Ford pickup.

I found my Grandfather with his teacher friends

on the edge of a soy bean field, near the pond

I’d fallen into more than thirty some years ago.

I ran to the forest, stopped to exchange stares

with a whitetail deer, found the brook where

the scared muskrats scurried and an otter swam.

I climbed trees, crossed streams, chucked rocks,

took cover behind maples, charged a hill with sticks,

breathed in cold fresh air and it made me invincible.

APPALACHIAN WINTERS

The smell of barbecues crept over backyard fences.

Kids found their baseball gloves, played in the street.

Mothers threw open windows to air out the houses.

Families flocked to parks, ball fields and boardwalks.

Others drove with tops down, turned the music up.

After a few days of flip flops and sleeveless shirts,

the sunshine and warm weather began to fade away.

Cold weather returned, bring in the plants, find your

wool caps, sweaters, sweatshirts, maybe even a coat.

“What’s going on?”  “What happened to the weather?”

And when I looked out the window and saw the tree

loaded with blossoms, I remembered what he said about

Dogwood Winter, Blackberry Winter, Whippoorwill Winter,

moments in spring time that remind you it can still be cold,

don’t try to rush the seasons, it’ll be summer soon enough.

IN THE TOBACCO BARN

It had been a dry fall, without morning fog or dew

leaves are likely to shatter if you pull them off dry.

Already November, with an auction on the horizon.

It was his Christmas check or the last of the money.

Not a word said between them, men climbed high

in the rafters, straddled poles and beams and formed

a chain to pass stakes with sticky stalks, cured tobacco.

Others pulled it, put it into piles- tips, brights and lugs.

They worked in silence, each knew exactly what to do.

It was Saturday, someone plugged in a boom box and

as they worked, they heard the play by play, straining

to hear their team battling with the perennial favorites.

Finally the announcer’s famous call of “Give… him… six!”

and “Touchdown Tennessee!” went over the airwaves.

The men yelled and hollered, but never stopped working.

They kept pulling, grading, and baling the burley tobacco.

THE JOY OF SHADOW PUPPETS

Those were the days of record players,

View-Masters, filmstrips, and projectors.

Watching a movie in school meant it had

to be set up carefully, ahead of time by a

teacher who knew how to thread it over

loops, metal frames, rollers, and spindles.

We watched filmstrips and felt honored

when chosen to be the one to turn a knob.

We listened carefully for a narrator to stop

and heard the “boop” from a record player.

At the end of each filmstrip or movie viewing

we’d fall all over each other, like little moths

wanting to get to the screen to try and make

shadow puppets on the wall. It didn’t last long,

as the teacher ended it quickly with her usual-

“All right, all right. That’s enough. Settle down.”

Thirty five years later it’s a new age with 

iPads, X-box, internet, DVD players in cars.

I’m the teacher now and present each lesson

with a laptop, Power Point, and LCD projector.

Strangely,after the advances in technology and

all the time that’s passed, kids still find magic in

trying to make barking dogs or soaring eagles with

their hands, a bulb’s glare and shadows on the wall.

And that's why I pause before shutting off the light.

HISTORY OF LACROSSE

At least once a summer, walking along the beach,

I’d stop to watch my grandfather interrupt students

from Maryland playing with fancy new lacrosse sticks.

He’d ask to take a turn and they always obliged and

smiled as he cradled the ball in the pocket before

whipping it to the other young man. “Oh boy”, he’d say,

then pause, examine the netting and grip before nodding

and thanking them. Off we’d go down the boardwalk

past Ocean Deck, Taylor Pork Roll, and all the little shops.

 He’d tell me stories about his days as a defenseman

playing with the Bear Mountain Cubs, for Springfield in ’32,

his knee injury and officiating for the plebes at West Point.

He’d laugh at young people who thought it was a new sport.

He’d talk about the tribes in New York state, the tradition

and most of all his vivid memories of his old teammates.

My grandfather, D.Bewick- back row, third from the left.

APOLOGY TO A HOUSE

I meant to give you a new roof,

have the tree branches trimmed,

and add on a big deck in the back.

I wanted some stylish front doors,

insulated windows, brighter lighting,

central air, a new hot water heater,

hardwood floors in the living room,

another toilet, a better shower stall,

and ceramic tiles for the side room.

I planned to paint the foundation,

pave the driveway, fix the doorbell,

power wash the siding and shutters,

and put up a white stockade fence.

I talked about more counter space,

bigger cabinets and a dishwasher in

the kitchen we rarely use for cooking.

I dreamed about a finished basement

with a party room and flat screen tv.

I thought I’d plant a dogwood tree,

a row of forsythia, and a lilac hedge.

Here we are, it’s twelve years later,

I have to say I’m sorry for the little

I’ve done for you, to help you improve,

to make you stronger and better too.

Someday I promise to make it up to you.

THE VISIT, 1990

At a counter in a crowded kitchen

decorated with roosters and hens

we sat on stools drinking black coffee

in mismatched cups and chipped mugs.

He showed me his gun cabinet, his prized

Winchester, the gun that won the West.

I knew you’d come one day, he said as he

pulled my kindergarten photo from his wallet.

She mixed the flour with shortening and

used a jelly jar to perfectly cut out biscuits.

I told your Dad that when you got two babies

you have to stay, but he just couldn’t do it.

Sharing memories of the times back in Jersey

turned to a conversation of misunderstandings

and regrets but when I went to leave they said

what they always said to us all, Stay with us.

ALMOST WROTE A LETTER

So much was made of the heading,

the greeting, the body, the salutation.

Red line drawn down the right side of

the white lined composition paper to

align the home address with the closing-

“Sincerely yours,” and my new signature.

Penmanship and punctuation- a must.

Rewrite it, do it again, not right? Again.

Stamps purchased for their artistic beauty.

There were special boxes of pastel, floral

themed stationary or was it stationery?

Finding a letter in my mailbox today made

me sit on the steps to read it, to follow the

numbers of the pages, to keep track of the

anecdotes about people we once knew,

last week’s weather, a meal made for dinner.

And as I read it, I heard it all in your voice,

the way I’d seen it done in so many movies.

I sat for a moment to think of how I should

write you back, mention the coming season,

ask about your health or wish you well before

closing with a “Truly yours,” or “All the best”.