Legacy
How does one stop the dreadful thought
Of cruelty to a poor, defenseless child?
Trust, and need for a mother’s love defiled
By her ignorance, and what that ignorance wrought?
Can one forgive the angry blow, the shout,
The eyes that looked but never really saw
Such loneliness, or notice light withdraw
From innocent eyes, sputter and go out?
Can I forgive you, mother,
For old wounds inflicted carelessly?
Can my boy where ever he is now,
find forgiveness in his heart for me?
 

I Do NOT Count Myself
I do not count myself among the lonely
Accompanied as I am by beauty; autumn in the rain,
Doe eyes peering from the quiet wood;
Poet voices; Omar, Keats, Lord Tennyson,
William Shakespeare in a sonnet mood.
(The buck approaching through the trembling trees)
Millay, Christina, Teasdale, Dickinson;
(Thoughts that make me go weak in the knees).
In a lighter vein, I reach for Parker,
Ogden Nash and the lesser bards,
I do not count myself among the lonely.
(Til flesh, remembering, aches for more than words).