Divorce, death, a marriage.

Someone is born but
The phone didn't ring.
The house that was there

Changed from bricks to memories.

A year then ten -
Fifteen, twenty,

Twenty-two or thirty three

Still I read the Bible Granny gave to me.

I looked for a birthday card-
I found her obituary.

I once sat silent in a tree-stand 

Waiting for deer with a Missouri foxtrot man.
He was wise and patient with horses.
He was quick to grin and sweat,

He would do the accounting.

At the house, tip to filter, until he slept,
He relentlessly smoked his cigarettes.

About the horses

He said - don't leave your foot in the stirrup -

They might drag you all evening

Across the grass and red-gold hay,

Green, red-gold then

Dead-still and grey.

I heard my first coyote that night.
Dogs woke and slunk nearer to sniff the moon-

It rose and sunk -

They whimpered, whispered, shivered, and

Barked.

Crickets rubbed legs and fiddled.

Frogs sang, they
Jumped into the  dark water of the trough.
Granny told me one tale -

Jonah and the whale-

Jonah sank but was raised.
I drifted, drifted, drifted off to Nineveh.

Ceding my mind to night and my dreams,
With Granny next to me.

She ran her fingers through my hair until

Both of us would sleep. 

She snored un-ladylike.
Did she wake in later years to think, to Remember loving my father or knowing me?

Barn cats ran wild 

Past well-tended flower beds.
Running still, running then,

They spring across the yard

They dashed on silent padded paws.
We are in a car and ride silently to church, but I saw that I will see them for the rest of my life Running there again.

Later there was a green cigarette bag.
Supple faux leather and a brassy click-
The window cracked and
Smoke trailed us,

Granny, me, and me and Nick. 

From Bastrop to heaven

Through impatient years to here.

Stale air inside and
"Peter and the Wolf."

They're both gone now but

The dust motes still float in light and smoke,

Bright and second hand.

The young sun invades through glass.

Again our present is moving. It's ancient.

It's waiting to happen; it's already past.

Decrepit convalescence
In a dingy house.

Death has waited patient decades -

Descends.
Seeps sickly in.
Sends greedy black tendrils over
Dusty floors, up each and every wall.

It sulks about scowling in the rooms -
Dims light.
Dampens mood.
Casts a funereal pall.

It hates a memory more than anything:
A beautiful day
Safe, and tucked away-
A smooth stone
Warm from fond and frequent touch
In a pocket near to mind.

It covets the good places.

Ghosts balk, unsettled, and step aside 
Where laughter meant
Safety once 

And safety meant home

Curled and lolling now, like a cat
On a patch of the house
Where the sun once cheerfully shone -
Death closes the blinds
Closes all windows.