In celebration of her life, a short collection of Mary's stories is now available in e-book form. If you'd like to read the collection, please click the image below and download the linked PDF.
Mary Kinsel's Library
A lifetime of poetry, short stories, and memories.
Saturday, June 10, 2023
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Pittsburgh
I loved you when you were smoke-stacked and sooty,
When they laughed at you, hurt our feelings.
Hell with the lid off, they called you.
A shot-and-a-beer town, more joke than city,
Dark at noon, your street lights on,
We mumbled when asked where we were from.
I loved you even then.
But then was then and now is now.
Once we trudged, now we glide.
We always knew we had it in us.
Now on a sunlit day, we delight in your beauty,
Houses peppered on tall, treed hills,
At night, we glory in a golden city,
Your lights reflected in three sparkling rivers.
Hey, world! Who's laughing now?
Sunday, October 29, 2017
The Photo Better Left Untaken
The two of them sit side-by-side
As the jet roars through dark skies
On its way to Hawaii's sun and fun.
But uncalled-for anger blights the flight
And they fight.
Yet true affection doesn't keep score,
And the next day on Maui's shore,
That tropical paradise
Mesmerizes and fills their eyes
With love for each other
As before.
Now just suppose the camera of life
Had recorded their brief strife,
Only to wait a lifetime of years
And then out of the blue
Had flashed back to that earlier view,
Reviving bitterness and tears.
No, better by far
That some of life's photos
Be not taken
So that love remains unshaken
And the heart, once healed,
From past hurt is sealed.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Mosaic
Assignment: Write a metaphor
Love of loyal mate,
Delight of four children at play.
Petty hurts and wrenching deaths.
Joys and sorrows in all their breadth.
Would I change some, even one, if I could?
Probably not.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Infinity
That our lives' very fulfillment was to begin.
How we worried about them, loved them
Even as now and yet we do.
Please keep them safe, we prayed.
Give them joy among their tears.
Let them grow up moral and good, we said,
Which they did.
Now, looking back, he and I know
We needn't have worried so.
There is no wrong way to go.
Only love.
We sit and remember and reminisce
And marvel how in them and in their offspring we see
Rebirth of kin – parents, grandparents, even of him and me.
A legacy.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Legacy
Where he wanted to go, he knew too.
One day a long time past,
To pretty Miss Adele he asked,
“Yes or No?”
“Yes or no, what?” asked she.
“Yes or no, will you marry me?”
She said “Yes”,
So then and there
Began a lifelong love affair.
Forty-some years passed
When from his hospital bed he asked,
“Take me home?” But she could not.
He died, and for lonely years she lived on,
Half a person, severed from the whole.
All his days, he knew exactly who he was,
Ever confident, but never vain.
To his daughters three he left a legacy
The gift he left his daughters three
Was a lesson by example, not word.
To his daughters three he left a legacy,
A lesson by example, not word.
He was Joe. The good Joe.