The first time ...

Driving the valley 

In springtime

The grey blue clouds 

Weeping over

Grape vine staccato green

With dabbles of mustard

Yellow

The Lifeboats

This is not the Titanic and
That was not an iceberg

You are perfectly capable
Of finding your own lifeboat

If and when you stop
Skipping like a record needle
Caught at the scratch,

The struggle to disagree
But not to judge
To know one's own self
And accept there are other possibilities

For every man, woman and child
Like me, grabbing and clutching for someone's hand
Finding comfort in just that
The effort, to save and be saved

Together

How many?  How many
Hear the alarm and choose
To return to sleep, alone

How many?

Whisper,
Thank goodness
This is over
I couldn't abide
Another day
Of this

Ship

Life is

Like a reward challenge on Survivor
Where we run through a twisted rope maze
Our team mates used to be our competitors
And our competitors used to be our mates

Breathless, we are never quite sure
Where we are supposed to be going or
Which Scavenger Hunt object we need
To pick up next, out of the corner

Our eye we catch glimpses of other people
At tasks we have already completed or snatch
Hints of detail to puzzles we've not yet

Faced, all the while needing to stay focused,
Never drawn to compare our progress
With any other,

The moment

My life's work:

Chasing the moment
Only to interrupt it
With the sheer persistent urge
To lift pen or camera to record
That which
I haven't
Yet finished

experiencing

It was Rio Bravo

Playing at my father's today

With that very 1950's/60's appeal

Dean Martin was the same age in that movie

That I am today and when I told my father, 

He said, "Well you'd better get busy then, 

Because you haven't done ....." And instead 

Of the word "much" his mouth

Grimaced and he sniggered

On the television screen, the "cowboys" 

Battled like they were at the ballet

Gun fights happen much faster these days 

On reading my own earler writings

Awkward enough remembering

My younger, thinner, pimply self,

She has to whisper in my ear,

Giggle giddily about things I have hindsight about

Thrash and cry about burdens she has yet to set down

She's perenially stuck where I have moved on from

One of those people you genuinely

Feel for, but would never hang out with

My father had just spoken.

"I have all these things I want to tell you before you get here ......   and then when you get here . . . . "

He suddenly looks more gentle ......  more gentle and a bit confused.

"then when you get here ....   I forget what I wanted to say."

I know suddenly.  I know exactly what he means.  While I am gone during the week.  While he tries to understand his world.  While he tries to tell his caregivers what to do.  While he tries to control his existence.  I become the unseen enemy.  I become the personification of everything that keeps him from being the man he used to be.

Until he sees me face to face.

I've heard from friends who are single fathers of a daughter of a special bond.  I've heard jokes about little girls wrapping even the largest males around their tiny little fingers, when the man in question is her father.

That has not been my experience.

My experience has been closer to the gruff open paw bear slap a mother bear may give to a cub on that last trip together.  The one where she chases him or her up a tree, abandons them to become an adult.  The cuff that is supposed to teach every last thing you will need to learn from me and then chase you away.

Today, for a brief instance, I saw that "she's my little daughter" moment . . ..   well not in my father's eyes.  It wasn't in his eyes.  It wasn't in his voice.  It was so brief.  So elusive.  It hung only briefly to be seen.  In the hesitation between "when you get here" and "I forget what I wanted to say."  In that moment of silence I knew, if he could express it, the words would be:  "I remember it's you."