Pittsburgh

I didn't say it, but I loved you even then.
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?

The Photo Better Left Untaken

Just beyond where California lies,

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.

Mosaic

Assignment: Write a metaphor

Tile by tile, day by day,

Some chosen, some god-wrought.
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.

Infinity

Young and untrained, we didn't know it then

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.

Legacy

Who he was he always knew.
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.

The Point of No Return

He crossed the Rubicon

He bared his heart at last.

But better he had gone on as before

And had kept his wounds buried in the past.

For often there is danger,

Dark and wrought with pain,

In trying to convey true meaning

From heart to heart and brain to brain

So now is his Rubicon crossed.

Nevermore can he reverse the tide.

Once cast, the die is forever cast

And hurts of the past forever abide.

Kaleidoscope

Picture a big red house on a hilltop high.
Maybe the hill was not really that high,
The house not that big at all.
But I was small.

A happy childhood with him
I can conjure up at whim
As I remember my cousin Joe
Who made it so.

Three years my elder, he taught me by the score,
Things like reading, spelling, and the rest.
He wanted me to astound when I went to school.
He wanted me to be the best.

When I was eight, my family moved away,
Sadly, Joey and I each went a separate way.
Unknowing, I left him to comply
With mental ills that soon began to multiply.

While for me, other friendships,
Some of which still endure,
Filled my life and my days.
I just wish now I had visited Joey more.

Still, wouldn't it be a crime
In these, my Eighties Years,
To waste precious, fleeting time
Shedding guilty tears?

Wouldn't it be better instead
To focus on images that of late
Play and replay in my head?
A kaleidoscope of Joey and me.

Perchance To Dream: A Triolet

When I lie deep in slumber, where do I go?
Is it a place where unbeknownst to me I yearn to be?
Often, pondering upon waking, I wonder if that be so.
When I lie deep in slumber, where do I go?
Is my subconscious somehow in the know,
Or capriciously is it toying with me?
When I lie deep in slumber, where do I go?
Is it a place where unbeknownst to me I yearn to be?

Haikus

wind begins to stir  

rustling of leaves picks up 

drop by drop, the rain

over distant hills

a train sounds a mournful cry

boding fills the air

Senyru:

elevator hums

on its way to the lobby

door opens, we spill out

Lillian's Uncle Cippolla (A Villanelle)

Whenever we were together, we were young again
As when we had met six decades ago at Pitt.
Then you up and died and left me.

Once retired, we'd meet each month, come sun or rain.
I at the wheel, and on the passenger side you would sit.
Whenever we were together, we were young again.

How we'd shop – all over the Pennsylvania country,
Giddy like silly school girls through most of it.
Then you up and died and left me.

You taught me about antiques and French porcelain.
I taught you Italian to make up for it.
Whenever we were together, we were young again.

The Italian word cippolla means onion, and it tickled me
That you thought that so unbelievably funny, and yet –
Then you up and died and left me.

“I really really did have an Uncle Cippolla,” you said,
Whenever we were together, we were young again.
Then you up and died and left me.

April Fool and Anticipation, haiku-ish

Two Haiku for Spring

Birds sing in March dawn
Crocuses peek across the lawn
Spring is here at last

White roads, car tires spin 

Snowflakes wild in April wind

Winter’s one last blast

A Haiku For Morning Walk

Morning sun’s warm kiss
It gets no better than this
A walk in summer

I Have Something To Say

Something to say,

It hides away

Cloaked in memories

Too harsh, too cruel

To be given voice..

I have something to say.

Oh, but do not say

Lest you risk

All.

Yet someday, one day, 

Something to say will out.

Then look out.

Then be prepared to let all go – 

memories, bitterness, longing –

Love.

Gazing Upon An Icon Smuggled Out Of Russia

Assignment: “Try your hand at writing a few lines of ekphrastic poetry.”

Byzantine Christ Pantocrater,

Judge of humanity,

I wonder what you have to say 

Of those who snatched you away?

How did they dare?

What's more, why should I care?

Your hair is centrally parted

And you are bearded.

Your eyes, stern and austere,

Pierce my every gaze

And though it is not I the thief,

Somehow I am afraid.

Captive in ornate frame of old,

Your countenance is half-hidden

By metallic screen of gold.

With one hand held forth

And cyrillic scripture in the other,

You seem to be admonishing me.

Did you hang first in the palace of a tsar,

And was his adoration of you used

To expiate sins against a peasantry abused?

Suddenly there abound in my mind

Thoughts of century-old injustices 

Of every kind.

Paradise Lost - Ode to Old Age

Had it
Lost it
Stopped trying to find it.

Had it
Lost it
Overstayed my welcome?

Communion

The veil between our worlds

Does not easily lift

Yet in rare instances

I seem to drift

Between the two

And talk with you.

Then happiness abounds

And inner peace resounds

Only to flee with the dawn

And this world's life

Continues doggedly on.

We Should Have Snapped A Picture

Memories, like photos of old

With age fade and fall apart

Yet within my heart

Pictures of my little ones shine clear.

They looked so dear.

At six, pretty Linda, the alpha;

Sweet Annie, the omega, at two,

And to even the score,

Stevie and Tommy at three and four.

Could any family ask for more?

All four dressed in Sunday best

To grandmother's for dinner they'd go.

Linda, always first inside the door,

Was ever the leader of the rest.

Now in her fifties, she still is so.

"Is there applesauce, Nonna?" they would ask.

Invariably she would answer,“Surely!”

Why, they wanted to know, did her applesauce,

Not from a store-bought jar,

Taste better than ours at home by far?

After dinner, on plush living room carpet

The boys would wrestle, at first in fun.

Their amused grandfather loved to egg them on

Until one would wail; the other claim he'd won

And then the game was done.

Years later, when visiting at breakfast

My own grandchildren would ask,

“Did you buy donuts, Nonna, for us today?" 

Smiling in remembrance of times past, 

“Surely!" I would say.

We should have snapped a picture.

Foggy Morning in Pittsburgh Town

Just at dawn, across the Highland Bridge I go.

Gone from view is the mighty Allegheny,

Kidnapped  without a trace,

And I, invisible in fog dense and eerie,

Feel anonymous and somehow merry,

Now and then, 

Droplets from the mist break free,

And like gentle Irish rain,

Stain my many-pocketed vest.

I lift my face to their caress.

Then at first dimly I begin to see

Approaching auto lights

From farther off than previously.

The river below has returned to view.

Bridge signs are visible anew.

With decorum, anonymity gone,

I walk on.

Three Haiku

birds tipsy in flight
leaves in free-fall from the trees
autumn's dance

bridge hangs in mid-air
over the Allegheny
early morning fog

sunbeam punctures cloud
spotlights Pittsburgh skyscrapers
huddled in the rain

Reflection

From out the silver-backed frame,

Part in anger, part in pain, 

Spoke the silver-haired dame:

Oh you out there –  

You of unlined face 

And black hair,

Why the puzzled stare?

Then replied 

Her counterpart fair,

Pouting with injured air:

Stand I here in wonder

How it came to be

That you are me

Or  I, you, as the case may be.

Upon Reading Sylvia Plath: Reflections in Tandem

Oh you out there in your silver-backed frame,
You of unlined face and black hair,
Why the puzzled stare?
Do you wonder when it came to be
That I am you
And you are me as I used to be?