ralph1414's profile

TO CLIMB ABOVE TIMBERLINE Just past tamarack, a nest of brown wrens: dead end, scrabble too loose to traverse, blue-grey granite ‘bulder ston’, meerschaum overgrown by knewal, pale green, tenacious weed. Cleats slip on yellow coltsfoot. Crawl down defeated, ascent ended near noontime; too steep this acclivity. Thirsty - a twist of lemon peel - now descend most listless. Sudden snowbright crest flash sunburst in cerulean: another stumble - pitched headfirst: limb broken, pitiable...

  If birds were to sing this false spring when jonquils mistakenly bloom in January If birds' song die like daffodils locked in ice and my heart no longer breaks   If my words weep as the March wind blows and April rain’s spent on unplanted soil   If my memory’s selectively dim and grim age intrudes with hints of frailty   If there’s no point and none to invent: imagination dry, shriveled, past   If tears never come and emotion is absent, ...

IN THIS STYLE Delicate, lethargic, wearing headphones, I did not hear you approach while I whistled to amuse the bird and the sun sliced through Venetian blinds cutting me in pieces as I lay on the Persian patterned carpet. This fashionable manner of communication, this affinity, obliterates the marksmanship of all the corporals, makes this simple common parcel even more priceless: be it diamonds, sea sand, an annuity, or an acquaintance. The apple tree in the garden presents a case in point:...

THE WAR Carry on this sad imbroglio supposing satisfaction still in reach, thinking every altercation will yield nothing more than petty squabble. Hungry, thankless, mind agape, aflame: run, run self-possessed and fleeing toward senseless time and end of seasons to be near filled up, yet never full. Return stunned from war amid the children: in Fall to bury, in Spring to plant the seed that blossoms fully - but we’re not relieved: profuse fruit, prodigal life of despair. Thus we struggle in o...

“A kindness done to the dead is a true kindness, for one does not expect a favor in return.” - Rashi's commentary on Genesis 47:30 WHEN I AM DEAD Will you be kind to me though you can expect no favor because of it? Or will you dismiss me, earning scant reward for doing otherwise? Though you don’t expect it, I’ll come and tell you what it’s like, if you’re nice. But if you’re not, you’ll have to find out on your own, I‘ll not help. So you see, it will pay to be truly kind: wash my body, wrap m...