SOME PEOPLE

are eating lasagna today or black eyed peas,
roast pork with kraut and mashed potatoes.
Others eat last night’s party leftovers while
watching the Rose Bowl parade or Mummers.
Little snack trays, TV tables we used to call them
are erected in living rooms, dens across America.
A day devoted to resting, eating, and watching
College football, a Honeymooners marathon, or
movies still in plastic wrap in a stack under the tree.
Soon they’ll think of Monday, going back to work
or school and once again he’ll laugh as he says-
“You know, somebody has to pay for all this stuff.”

RESOLUTIONS

Another year gone too fast,
for the new year, I make no
resolutions, since I make them
each day of my life anyways.

I don’t have a calendar, most days
I can’t tell you the date, the number.
When I get old, I won’t know the day
of the week, I’ll feel lucky to be free.

Today I may ride the exercise bike.
I may read a few pages in my book.
I may decide to clean up around here.
I may take a walk in my neighborhood.

I will be thankful for sunshine, rain,
snow melt, blue jays on the branches,
a warm living room, a big brown chair,
my little house where I feel at home.

THIRD WEEK IN JANUARY

Today they came to pick up the dead in a shiny
white Mack trash truck from our municipal complex.
Some of these trees have been on the curb for weeks.
Once the center of attention, focus of the celebrations
with its special corner of the living room, decorated with
ornaments, some family heirlooms, souvenirs of past trips,
a child’s project from first grade, lights that blink sometimes.
Captured in holiday photos we never print, but take anyways.
Always in the background when we post to social network pages
and send as email attachments to the scattered and distant.

The driver and his young helper take turns getting out of the cab.
Carhartt jackets, fluorescent green caps, waterproof work boots.
Trying hard to look cool, not wanting to look like they’re working.
But it’s hard to look dignified when you’re tugging at the trunk of
somebody’s old tree covered over and frozen in a foot of snow.
I can’t resist rolling down my window when the truck drives by,
even though temps are in the single digits this Monday morning.
I want to smell the garbage truck, full of mashed up evergreens
going down my street leaving a scented trail like they’ve got a million
miniature pine tree air fresheners hanging from its rearview mirror.

HER LAST STAND

Halloween is over, so she’ll pull
down the Rubbermaid bins
marked Thanksgiving and get ready
to teach a lesson like its 1977.
She’ll wear a headband with a feather;
a Pocahontas costume from the Party Store,
and put her hair up in braids.
She’ll stand at the classroom door
greet the kids with a raised hand
and say, Ugh, How, Kemo Sabe and
call them all her little braves.

She’s make vests out of paper bags,
War bonnets out of construction paper,
Tom toms out of coffee cans that she saved,
and wampum necklaces out of uncooked ziti.
Room mothers will prepare a snack and paint
streaks of paint on the children’s little cheeks.
They’ll all trace their hands; put beaks on the
thumb’s outline to make a Tom Turkey.
She’ll call them to the rug for a Pow Wow
and tell them to sit “Native American style”.

OVERPASS

My cruise control is set to 65,
you know how Virginia is, especially
when it’s Fourth of July weekend.
Above Highway 81 North, stands
an old guy in a black leather vest
and a POW-MIA biker bandana.
He jumps up and down, waving the
American flag on a 6 foot long pole.
His red, white, and blue sign says-
Remember, Freedom is Not Free.
He jumps extra high and hollers as
the driver of a Kenilworth hauling
Little Debbie Snack cakes yanks on
the air horn, to second that emotion.

BEHIND

We threw out what was left
of the Halloween candy today,
the Smarties, a few boxes of Nerds,
Laffy Taffy, a handful of Dum Dums.
Finally we take a Sunday afternoon
to rake up the mounds of leaves.

We’re the last ones on the block
to rake, again. Each neighbor’s lawn,
dark green, clear of the faded mess
from the too many oak trees that fill
the tiny yards on our suburban street.
They have their brown paper sacks
lined up neatly on the curb for pick up.
I am behind again, just starting to deal
with my cursed homeowner duties.

Look forward to Thursday,Thanksgiving,
anticipating the day after even more,
a day off to sit, to read, to write, to rest.
Filling my last paper bag, I prop it up
on the edge of my yard and look down
the street, three houses down they’re
stringing Christmas lights on the bushes
and inflating a Charlie Brown snow globe.