Dreams

My daddy lived on selling dreams behind the plexiglass "next" booth at the Horse Track. He lived the dream, in summer he'd be at the Coal Creek Canyon cabin, in winter they'd pack it up and follow the circuit to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

My step-mother was one of those rare earth-guides. She brought me great solace.

My mother lived on keeping people alive. She was in charge of the labs for the county area. I suppose she preserved dreams, help create more dreams, and certainly kept many dreams alive in that small town.

Her dreams were also in a very rare form. They came in the essence of my half-sister. This was a lifelong struggle of a dream, but it was headed to Wellesley on a full scholarship. Dressed in her finest, the dream-on-scholarship was rolling away on the rail train.

It's easier to invent the dream when it's away.

Shadows show up every where.

Beware of invisibility.

- 30 -

art 9/16/2011

poem

I will miss
Cricket symphony
Taccata and Fugue
Evening murmuring
Howls of hounds
startle geese calling out,
ensuring mate is safe

Winds sings through pine
Trees tell delicate stories
Of bird families held,
nurtured, let go to
Autumn's call

Slight breezes sip upon my
Skin, like puppies blindly
nuzzling for mothers' milk
Calls of silent aching

Last embers of fire smolder
to remind that danger
passed so closely Yet
Spared the predator
No fire too close
No smoke too far

Sleeping ducks alert
The ponds chill and wings
slip to their sides as
Graceful ancient water ballet
Keep safe the delicate dreams

No fear. No drowning
All buoyant and sacred
The moon casts strong
shadows now high
In the heavens

Chickens roost near our
doorways. Heads tucked
into feathered warmth
Familiar as mother hen body
kept chicks warm in safe
sanctions. Only rooster
Awakens to check on mates
Sleep and once again

Crickets lull the illusion
Of summer safety and danger
I will miss warm reminders
I gather the fleece close to
my naked skin.

Dog approaches
To tell me. The season for
Sitting in warmth and
Summer comfort draws
near as the last moth
Circles evening spotlight

I glow with the gifts
Change but elusive. I am
Certain to feel this
Again in the evening

I will miss nothing but
Cricket serenade in
Sonatas
The chorus heard
In another time. Another
World. Another summer night
Ahead of my motion

Enjoy. Change so dear
That the world holds it
Constant. No chaos tonight

Ducks murmur
Geese call
Chickens roost
Breeze touches
Skin cells continue this
Glory
Change

September 25, 2010
12:31am

Needles in the Black Hills

Ah, but I digress ...

mother's garden

That Snowy Day

home movies
showed me following dad
out of a pine forest
hopping in the snow
behind the tree he
cut for Christmas… I was
three. The movies play
in my memory over and over

I looked out of the oxygen tent
distorted plastic images
dad and Uncle Jimmy, hat
in hand, looking resigned
I knew I had died once then
I was four.

Summer of the Beatles
Red Rocks ’64 how I wanted
to see them, so I stayed with
daddy that summer in Denver
fresh paint on the wall of my
very own room, we spent the days
together and we giggled and read
books and talked about not seeing
things one way,

more became my
horizon and I grew strong

A few visits since that time
at the cabin in Coal Creek, he would
drink and I would go outside
smoke reefer, come back to giggle
with Wanda and dad

by that time the stories were dearer

Wanda called one night ’79
dad was in the VA hospital dying
cancer of lung then liver
I gathered tapes of swing music
photos that my sisters ordered me
not to show him,

his grandsons
in 16 x 20 sat next to his bed
a ward filled with dying veterans
he had life to show off

and we listened and laughed
and I heard questions I could not
answer and four months, every night
I sat by that bed, learning why
mother had loved him

The last day at the hospital
nurses pointed to a single room
last hour on earth and we held
hands and we cried and we giggled

and he died and I will never forget
that snowy day, bobbing behind that
fallen tree and catching up to
my daddy to grab his gloved hand
and follow


20.6.2010
lmullinw

9j8z2qsw6m

Peabody in the fuschia

it rained. peabody didn't like it.

hummingbird in meadow sunset for James

birth

tornado touches very near
rain erodes the rocky earth
stones rumble down the hill
hail hits roof like bullets
massive piles and flashes
electrical fright
apple sized ice, breaking windows

birth is painful


lmw

eggwest

i am wyoming

i am wyoming
from two makes whole
finally at rest

Sheridan my mother's home
Newcastle my father's
I born in his home town
He born in
mine Hot Springs

these lands come together in the
splendor and wonder
the winds on the plains
the rivers the rolling hills
blue Tetons

most humble
people on earth
always a neighbor
seldom seen, always near

i am part red rock canyon wall
i am snaking river replenishing
i am grazing antelope and hawk above

tower of the sacred, devil's tower
cave of wind, crystals, fossils,
arrow heads

I am this land
Black Hills
Nebraska plains
Tetons Rockies
I am the Poudre and
the Platte
and Old Woman Creek

the eagle and the
hummingbird
pheasant and the quail

i am of the earth
on this first day of celebration
when the spirits
dance for spring

come together from such vast borders
whole clay and part blood
the Wounded Knee and Little BigHorn
accomplice by the color
of my skin

I am the sky watching
and when the clouds finally
part, as they always must

I am the rock and the scrub tree
the ponderosa pine and
the sandstone of our past, embedded

The Year of the Ox

she died
during the growing season
in the Year of the Dog

That's how I remember dates now
since the days are felt simple
kept silenced by the mirror

I imagine her hand, creeping up
from the dank earth, as her brother
joins her, family at rest

Each time there is a death in me
the vitriolic grin of the oldest,
crushing the unknowing opponent, I play
no chess. No game. No more fear or care
half my blood but filled with bile and
scorn

the death of hope
thinking full blood would somehow
Show the truth to the willing

At least compassion for the silenced
destroyed by uneven edges crags, slip rock
the entrance of your caves

she killed me many years ago, not
telling me why, or that it would come
in the dark shadows of gasping for air in the night
when she promised to be there, when they said they understood

my place of rest will never be near your hatred
and the poison you spewed, those who would listen
and those who had no choice
bones turned to dust and ash
of a sister's life


year of the dog, I am water snake
I have never told the secrets
that you fear so much
to discredit me this badly

still, I keep the silence
Dante clear to me now
your self efficacy will never see
a life of gasping for anything to breathe
a life alone, never a shelter
a life chosen, yes but one not closed

your sickness is your end
I lived with mine since before I knew you
each day faced death, did you not see
a life spent taking care of a disease that
deserved no time but took all of mine away

and now, you are finally dead to me
Year of the Ox, my strongest one yet
when I plant the seeds this year and
live by the seasons that the earth bring

No more will your hatred enter my home or my soul