Birds of a feather

From the curve of the bridge

I looked away,

and then in front of me

soundless bursts of wind

dove onto the surface

of the river

and fanned out in woven ripples

like flocks of air in reflected sky.

Here and there they swirled

while the gulls waiting

in the rock-strewn shallows

paid them no heed.

And where have all the leaves gone?

Only a few float beneath my feet.

If only the sun

weren’t still so warm on my back,

or the careless clouds

drifting through my view of the river

above and also below, the

wind plays as if tomorrow

were just another day.

Perhaps I’ll wait a little longer,

heedless of the weather,

just in case this wind flies south for the winter.

People that matter, a little

It was a crisp October morning and I had decided to walk Dawn up the hill. The yellow-leaved tree across from Kennedy’s house was situated such that the low morning sun reflected directly back into our eyes.

As we climbed the steps, single file, up behind Melrose Place, two college women with slender legs and backpacks cruised on up past us. They were already well up the drive toward the Chancellor’s Residence when we reached the top of the stairs.

I commented that I couldn’t remember what it actually felt like to be their age.

Having dropped Dawn at Blake for her class, I walked along Jayhawk Boulevard, observing the sunlight on the trees and buildings and a trickle of students. I had turned toward home when I came upon a striking young woman walking toward the sun that was in my eyes. She had long dark hair, gray leggings, and calf-length boots striking a steady cadence on the sidewalk. I soon passed her by, but I had stopped to examine the frost on the dark red coleus leaves in front of Watson Library.

Nina – I’ll call her that, partly because I once knew a woman who unexpectedly came to mind named Tina when I was about Nina’s age. Nina walked up to me and spoke to me.

She mistakenly thought I might be with KU Maintenance and said she was supposed to write a story about skateboarders on campus. I told her I was rarely on campus but that I saw skateboarders on Mass St., and in the hundreds of times I saw them, they mostly got away with skating on those sidewalks.

She smiled at me, a gap between her teeth in a pretty face, a little unsure, I thought. But Nina said maybe she could make a story out of that; she had already gotten a bureaucratic brush-off about what they thought of skateboarders from official channels.

I told her of the time I had seen a group of skateboarders trying to pop their boards into the air and ride them along the concrete traffic barrier in front of the side door at the Eldridge Hotel. Police had been called and were in the process of sitting the young men down for a lecture or tickets or whatever, I didn’t stay to find out.

Nina had pulled out her digital recorder, to capture this bit of a nearly non-story. She politely took my name and spelling, and asked if it would be alright if she characterized me as a Lawrence resident. We walked a few steps together and I asked her if her story was for the Daily Kansan.

She said, yes, and then at the corner, she said it was nice to meet me, and I walked on down 14^th Street.

I listened to the receding cadence of her boot heels and thought about how she was young and pretty and persistent and unsure.

And I wondered whatever became of Tina.

Wind

One should be clear from the outset,

one is not the same as another,

but this is how I write poetry, sometimes.

I walk around with my eyes open,

I listen with my ears,

I make some effort to notice the things

that make an impression on me.

And then I go to bed at a reasonable hour.

And being the age I am,

I wake in the middle of the night -

sometimes the needle on the phonograph skips,

and the needle just ticks –

round and round and round it ticks -

until I finally get up and sit in front of a page.

And then I let the lines go down,

I let one word follow another,

until there are no more.

It can’t be as simple as that, you say?

I once had a boat.

I bought it for five hundred dollars.

I futzed with the lights on the trailer.

I hitched it to my Mazda pickup

and I drove it to the lake.

I spent an hour or so rigging the mast and sails,

and then I backed it into the water.

I kept one hand on the rudder

and one eye on the billowing sail,

and yes, it’s was simple as that.

If I don’t have to make the water

and I don’t have to make the wind blow,

there’s not much more to sailing than that.

I was never the greatest of sailors,

but I felt what it was

to fly over the water

in the face of the wind.

On that boat on that lake,

I could feel the wind and the water.

And if it were not for poetry,

I’d buy another boat,

one the size of a long wagon,

and I’d pull it behind me as I walked along the shore,

I’d set the sail by the river’s edge,

and wait for the wind to blow.

It would be as simple as that.

Bras across the Kaw

Walking across the river Kaw one October day,

bras of all colors and sizes were strung along the railing

from one end of the bridge to the other,

cups catching the wind, moving.

A nodding acquaintance approached -

he’s usually appreciative of the day -  

a couple of older men, crossing a bridge,

decorated with bras.

I cracked, “Are they having a sidewalk sale?”

He paused, already a step past me, then replied,

 “Where’s the rest of them?”

We laughed - and walked on.

Then … walking toward home,

Sarah Mclachlan was singing “In the Arms of the Angel”

from the jewelry store’s outdoor speakers.

I was already a step past when I heard something.

Call it music, call it poetry.

It’s what stops me.
Her voice: “…find some comfort here…”

I made a little circle

and stood underneath the speaker.

As I listened to the rest of the song,

I watched some of the rest of them walking by.

Oblivious to the music -

to impending death.

Embracing the day,

and the arm of the person they were with.