Our Father

← | index, complete | index of poems selected by topic →

His last years, when I'd visit him,
he'd pull my handshake into a hug

tight against that sagging body,
once a boxer's, that we children

used to climb and ride like a horse,
that shaded me shepherding bugs in the garden

while, his tee shirt soaked with sweat,
its hands gripped a shovel to turn the earth.

Those hands raised me to his office window
to see downtown and a world beyond.

Bed time, I winced at the scratch of those whiskers,
the air of tobacco and gin with his kiss.

Why should we call by the name of that body
the Soul that set galaxies spinning like pinwheels?

My sense I must've disappointed
put between us a tense distance,

that, in his last years, when I'd visit,
his arms would squeeze out of existence.

← | index, complete | index of poems selected by topic →

It's been months since I posted a poem here. A part-time office job at the church has interrupted my routine. It's not just a matter of time; before work, my mind is occupied with the challenge ahead; after work, my eyes and back reject any additional desktime. - WSS

Parody for Fr. Daron's Last Sunday at St. James

← | index | →

Parody of "My Favorite Things," music by Richard Rodgers, original lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein III.

Insightful sermons about the Almighty,
millions he saved us with knowledge of I.T.,
livestreaming Easter from his living room--
these are some ways we'll recall Father Vroon.

How he sings plainchant, his high-reaching vocals,
how he has gone from Ray-Bans to bifocals,
incense so thick, he sets off the alarm --
these we'll remember as part of his charm.

Praying with pets who are howling and barking,
COVID communion to worshipers parking,
climbing the roof to turn on the a.c. --
these are the things we'll keep in memory.

James and Charlie,
"little" Isaac,
how we've seen you grow.

So Julie and Daron,
we're grateful for you.
God bless you where-e'er you go!

Photo: Fr. Daron at the Blessing of the Animals.
← | index | →

Background comments. - WSS

Sleep was inside me

← | index | →

...sleep that's inside everything... - Dean Young, "Bell Tower"

the evening session ran late
and sleep was inside me

like the cat in her crate
on our way to the vet,
howling and coiling from grate

to grate, so the carrier tipped
and hit my knee with
every shift of her weight.

Home at last, her plush
cat bed at the open gate,
what did she do,

but hesitate.

Image by Android, from a photograph of my sister's cat.
← | index | →

First Homes

← | index | →

We laughed to remember our dorm or first apartment,
  the kitchen, pinched, the bath with three doors,
  the underground windows, the tilted floors,
the gulf between our pitiful pasts and present.

But I heard wistfulness and wonderment,
  why Solomon made his splendid temple
  hark back to the tabernacle,
when God felt near as fire in a nomad's tent.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

My friends in Education for Ministry (EfM) gave me this idea with their stories and the insight about the tabernacle. See our class blog.

In the 12 waking hours since I posted this yesterday, I've revised the last five lines at least 25 ways. The pace accelerated when I read some criticism of careless meter in an essay by Dana Gioia. Once again, I find that cutting awkward phrases made room for new ones that said more of what I'd wanted to say. - WSS

Eulogy

← | index | →

For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. - Lamentations 3.33

A modern miracle: a Boston funeral
streamed to Atlanta, strapped to my bike.
The deceased had assisted me once at church,
so why not give his family a "like"?

I fought headwinds through sunny parks,
Lamentations, and eulogies.
His daughter laughed through tears while gusts
roared through newly leafy trees.

The wind knocked me sideways as I heard
his life recalled by those he loved.
A miracle: how, by puffs of air
across miles and millennia, a man can be moved.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

Island at Indian Head, Quebec / L'Ile Dan Rose

← | index | →

for my host Dan Rose, 1986

TERRAIN PRIVÉ -- CHEMIN AUSSI
A tourist squeals, "Ooo, let's go see"
and takes the thousandth photo of the scenery:
"That rock's so like an Indian's head!"
They don't see the house, orange-red
like lobster glowing on a tray of greenery.

But tourists pay for lobster's taste,
then let the best parts go to waste;
so, they drive on to another tourist joint.
They never know they leave behind
an island state, a state of mind --
they've photographed the Head but missed the Point.

To reach Dan's island you must turn --
off road, off radio, and inward. Learn
that solitude's not lonely, nor silence soundless;
learn French and cooking; notice flowers,
forget routine and days and hours;
learn an island can be boundless.

← | index | →

L'île Dan Rose
edité par Gérald O'Connor

TERRAIN PRIVÉ -- CHEMIN AUSSI
Des touristes crient, "Ooo, alons-y"
et photographent la millième fois cette splendeur:
"Que ça se ressemble à une tête d'Indien!"
D'une maison, en arrière, ils ne remarquent rien --
maison orange comme un homard en saladier de verdure.

Pour l'homard, des touristes paient a grand frais,
mais ne mangent qu'un peu; la plupart, c'est déchet.
Donc, après vue rapide, ils partent au loin --
rechercher casse-croute -- ils n'ont pas compris
que c'était une île, une île d'esprit;
leur visite, sans pointe, malgré vue du Point.

Pour atteindre l'île, il faut faire un détour,
pour ne plus entendre radio, entendre au coeur.
Cherchez la solitude, la silence, et ensuite
apprenez le français, la cuisine, noms de fleurs;
oubliez la routine, les jours, même les heures --
vous allez découvrir une sorte d'île sans limite.

← | index | →

I drew the image on a foggy afternoon sitting above the "Indian Head" pictured in the previous poem. Dan's point of land, not a literal island, is now a state park. - WSS

At a Beach in Quebec / Sur la Plage en Quebec

← | index | →

Written July 1986

28 years minus my language
over 2000 miles from home
plus cultural variables
reduced to lowest common terms
leaves me maybe five or six.

It's back to school again
with older boys, 13 and 10
who know
the way, what's up, what's next,
and (most of all)
what's so funny --
who take time out to educate
a tag-along of 28:

"Look! See? Crab!"
-Ah, oui, ah, oui.
"Look! Is cage for lobster, see?"
-Ah, oui, ah, oui.
Aside, I watch them work and hope
the boys will let me pull the rope.
When my size can help, then I'm allowed.
When they say, "Is good, thank you" I'm proud.

Unsteady on the rocks I see
they're far ahead. They turn and call to me --
and I run!

IMAGE: A virtual selfie at Tête d'Indien on the Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec.
See my article Tour De Quebec about the visit.
← | index | →

I found this poem in the journal I kept during a summer in Quebec, along with this French translation edited by the two boys mentioned in the poem. They were neighbors to my host Dan Rose.

Sur la Plage en Quebec
Ecrivé Juillet 1986, edité par Gérald et Claude O'Connor.

Mes 28 ans moins ma langue
divisé de mon pays 3500 km
plus variables culturelles
reduît à la plus simple expression --
je n'ai de reste que 5 or 6.

A l'école encore avec deux garçons,
plus vieux de moi, d'ages 13 et 10 ans
qui savent toujours
comment, qui se passe, ensuite,
et (surtout)
pourquoi est-ce qu'on rit --
ils se donnent de la peine on enseignant
moi, inutile, adulte-comme-enfant:

"Look! See? Crab!"
-Ah, oui, ah, oui.
"Look! Is cage for lobster, see?"
-Ah, oui, ah, oui.
Je régarde leurs travaux, de côté,
en espérant que je les peux aider.
Enfin, ils me laissent mettre la trappe par-dessous.
Je suis fier quand ils me disent, "Is good, thank you."

Instable, sûr les roches, je les vois
au loin. Ils se tournent, et appellent moi --
que je cours!

← | index | →

Bike, Snake

← | index | →

Spoiler alert:
he wasn't hurt,

a crooked pencil,
yellow, still.

Crouching there,
I met his glare

and caught reproach
at man's encroachment.

He sprang, I cursed,
and he reversed,

a lightning ess,
to the cover of grass.

I thought it just
to eat his dust

and also, awesome:
a snake played possum.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

The Day After Valentine's

← | index | →

Single on Singles Awareness Day and un-
aware, I scrolled through meme after meme
of loners at parties and tables for two with one,
but never the acronym.

It's SAD, they don't have to say to say, a disease:
My clinic offered S INGLES SHOTS.
At church we're listed with shut-ins and refugees
as Those Kept In Our Thoughts.

But what commuter in February rain
is not a refugee, alone,
and straining through frosted glass to see the lane
that's theirs but not their own?

In warmth at home through every page I read
and write exploring in aloneness,
God's restoring me. I've all I need --
the dog in my lap, a bonus.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

The first two stanzas of this poem were set by February 16; the others took three more weeks to write down and were 40 years in the making. No one - not Mom, not Dad, not the singles group at church - have ever believed that I enjoy living alone.

Besides, I contended with my hero, Broadway songwriter Stephen Sondheim. His lyric "Being Alive" expresses the negatives of being with someone before he flips it: Alone is ... not alive. For the movie Dick Tracy he wrote "Live Alone and Like It": On your own with only you to concern yourself / doesn't mean you're lonely, just that you're free. Even Sondheim undercuts the lyric as the song accompanies a montage that shows the title character falling in love. Even Stephen. - WSS

Conspiracy Theory

← | index | →

Now when these things begin to take place, look up, raise up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. - Luke 21.36

They say it came from China, this "balloon"
as big as a house and white as the moon,
so airy that radar couldn't spy it,
so calm that jets too fast passed by it.

They say they shot it down offshore --
no witnesses, natch -- but hundreds more
are roaming the world engaged in surveillance.
They say they haven't ruled out aliens.

I say consider the effect they caused.
When pundits and armies and autocrats paused,
we looked up in wonder from tirades and tangles.
They haven't said they've ruled out angels.

The photograph of the subject comes from a recent news story.
← | index | →

We Thank You for the Gift of Water

← | index | →

On atrophied legs, he lets his walker go
and twists to the step rails. Gripping, he must depend
on his arms to lower him to the shallow end.

Waves, warm as puppies, lap his feet, roll over
ankles, and chase through legs, his crooked knee
massaged. They jump to his chest; he wades, hands free.

He'd waited outside in the cold for help with the door.
In here, these mix-breed hydrogen-oxygen molecules
heal, a million billion miracles.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

When I saw this man at the county's aquatic center, I recalled how a swimming pool liberated me during a long recuperation from injury. Was there a poem in those memories? I filled pages with details, drew a picture, and re-read the story in John's gospel about a cripple waiting at the gate to an ancient Jacuzzi. All of those contributed to this poem a little. Yet nothing conveyed how the water made me feel until the canine simile emerged. Maybe it's unfair to put puppies in a poem -- like fishing in a barrel -- but they were right for the occasion.

The title comes from the Book of Common Prayer's liturgy for baptism, which I first heard in 1981. After speaking aloud some paragraphs about baptism, the priest suddenly sang We thank You, Almighty God, for the gift of water, lifting a silver ewer high so that sunlight glistened in the stream and the sound of water filling the bowl was drawn out. The sight, the sound, and the singing elevated the moment in the liturgy; the liturgy elevated this ordinary substance to a sacrament. I hope that some of that feeling has made its way into this poem. - WSS

Expiration Date

← | index | →

ploy to force the grocery
to discard airtight jars of sauces
tossed untasted into a bin,
and restock the same;

apocalypse at God-knows-when,
when those on shelves, sealed in themselves,
who never seasoned anyone's life,
miss Kingdom Come;

when I lose my taste -- for my dog's pirouette
as we set out walking -- for chat with a friend
while making her supper -- for singing, or summer,
or memories of home;

when I clutch my pen and can't squeeze out
another poem.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

This poem started from a snarky, self-righteous premise, i.e., that the truths many Americans hold to be self-evident are both false and more important to them than the truths in the Declaration of Independence and the Nicene Creed. That expiration dates matter topped the list and opened opportunities for playing with consonance and puns, as condiments supposedly turn into contaminants overnight, over-the-counter panaceas become poisons, fads fade and thyme's up.

But snarkiness is not a good source for a poem, and if you bend the whole poem to fit the word "contaminant," you're probably distorting your idea. When I gave up on that word this morning, everything clicked into place.

So in my frustration and fear that I'd never finish this poem, I've lived the last stanza for four weeks. This morning was the poem's expiration date: I was prepared to call the month a loss and file the drafts away. I'm so relieved. - WSS