Not far and none too deep

Not far and none too deep

Water in just one hand

Tangent touching with time

Stars and the grains of sand

Remembrances and dreams

Tree rings and ripened fruit

Baby steps and broad thoughts

Maintenance and pursuit

Self-taught and still learning

Self-taught and still learning 

Pinned by a world flooding

Survival or power

Scraping or bath blooding

All rushing in beneath

The stillness of night sky

Here on a narrow ledge 

Studying to get by

Purchasing time with self

Purchasing time with self

A loss to just maintain 

Like a tablecloth with

A hole from scissored stain

A price for a fraction

A partial to survive

Not one-hundred percent

I’m near to ninety-five

Directly overhead

Directly overhead

A great blue heron flies

Intent on making rounds

Here I am by surprise 

For this moment briefly

Out of my corner space

A tourist of living

Concord and not rat race

Fine memories of the

Fine memories of the

Afternoon we wasted

Not realizing it was

The Grand Life we tasted

An ephemeral page

The ink hasn’t faded

The Our Town nothing day

Submerged and not waded

Rain check my destiny

Rain check my destiny

The peonies in bloom

An artist’s yellow is

Contrasting sense of doom

Blank pages of storm clouds

Are somewhere framed in blue

Living life in margins

With questions, comments, clue

Gray clouds in my pockets

Gray clouds in my pockets

Early frost on my heart

The race already won

Me here at my false start

Autumn meant for autumn

Not in the month of May

Tulips and not asters

Orchard grass and not hay