March

March starts
like more of February;
they say it roars
but I just hear it groan
with the heaviness of
a tired coat of wool
felt warmer in December
when the wind
was not as sharp, the hope
not as brittle.

March middles like the winter’s edge;
they predicted
a revival, but the dawn
still casts its shadows
and the breeze still
blows the spirit out of me
and I can’t see
the daylight saved, the equinox
or whatever it is that happens
after Lent.

March is spent
on so many passing
celebrations,
like the day the city dyes
the river green
or the night they sit around
waiting for Elijah.
We speak of eggs and rabbits,
connecting symbols of a pagan life
to a feast of sacrifice,
but I will feel the March wind blowing,
stirring up the doubt

Until the wind dies down
and the spirit goes out.

Twentieth Palm Sunday

This will be the twentieth Palm
Sunday after my father died
(All the importance we put in a day).
“Sunday’s coming,” he used to say
In the evenings, preparing to preach.

He was fifty one; another month
He would have been fifty two.
We plodded through that Holy Week;
By Maundy Thursday we were driving home;
Good Friday, watched them veil the cross;

And Saturday, turned the television on
To see March Madness with brother Josh
Blowing a horn with the Illini band.
“Sunday’s coming,” Dad used to say,
As if every day were Saturday.

Another two months and brother Dan
Would graduate from college,
Dad’s college, his old alma mater
From thirty years before.  It felt to us
Like Dad was there all over again.

And suddenly it’s twenty years ago,
Twenty years of Sundays coming.
As Dad would say, I’m doing okay.
But it will be harder at number twenty five
When I will be fifty one.

gray

if you could read my mind it would be gray
i mean to say
                    the color of a stone
without distinction neither right no wrong
without apology no will no wont
be coming home tonight
                               how was your day
you said i said its funny but i dont
remember much about the black or white
of it the colors turn to monotone
and the lines begin to fade
                                  away
i find myself with nothing more to say
and nowhere else to go the day
                                         is done
and i am going home to you tonight
instead of going off somewhere alone
to lose myself in my private shades
                                           of gray