5 A.M. AFFAIR

Woman bared in the window

Moonlight makes her skin glow

What does she know that

She’s staring at me so?

Has she no modesty

Where is my chivalry

As I walk past her property

Why aren’t I faultlessly free

To turn away and go?

THE BOOT

Watercolor by Pat Morgan

Alabama cowgirl,                                  

Out of all my things

You took my boot

To keep near.

Mostly on the move

Like fairy dust in the wind,

Occasionally you’d land

Setting my boot right next to you,

Companion – Sentry – Reminder.    

Your beautiful mother

Gave you your blond hair

And round face.

What did I give you?

Not my boot,

You took that yourself.

Keep it near you

Like a loyal friend,

Not for your small foot,

But for your big heart.


SEA GLASS PEOPLE - Portraits in Words and Watercolors   (available on Amazon.com)

MOSES – TRANSLUCENT AND BLUE

                                    Moses sits in the flap opening of his tent

Squinting against the blinding desert light,

Tired after forty years

Of royal responsibility

Thinking about the future,

The tribes’, his.

The other side of the Jordan is the future

For the sons of the sons of Jacob,

But not Moses.

The men will cross first to face those

Who’d stand against Israel’s destiny

While he sits like a monument.

The sand underneath him 

Is brutally hot like his inner turmoil.

He will not see Canaan.  He will die soon.

He’s been sentenced without appeal

For using force while seeking water when

God told him to speak and water would flow.

He’s angry at the people,

Incessant complainers,

Angry at himself for being momentarily weak,

Angry at God for his exalted expectations,

Angry at being angry,

Still there’s no relief.

Someday Job will get a chance

To argue directly with God.  And live.

But Moses, the humblest man alive,

Shortly after his anger assuages

Will quietly close his eyes

On this side of the Jordan.

SUN AND MOON

The sun, a star, a ball of hot gas,

Just rose past the horizon.

First morning light has found

A crack in the window blinds.

From my hospital bed,

White sheets so stiff and pure

They almost smother,

I see signs of day invade.

By 10, in surgery,

I’m out of my mind.

My belly distended by gas

They enter, cut and suture

Fixing all that is wrong inside me.

Back in my room, they’ve made a mistake

Leaving the blinds wide open I see a yellow moon

As round as the sun.  Thank God, it’s evening.

They are done. I am still alive.

From my hospital bed,

White sheets so stiff and pure

They almost smother,

I know what I must do

When I leave this place.

I must fix those parts of me

They did not know nor could have fixed.