Things With Strings

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See that small farm right there
See those young and old kids

Mine and his

Toys and mischief, solemnity and instruments strewn about
All things with strings — what heaven these things

Animals, there’s no choice

Alpacas, needing to wake us at dawn but, agreeable, settle in for the night before our dinnertime

Ebony dogs and snowy white chickens
No cows, but a cowboy

Keeps his white hat far back in our closet on a shelf and never puts my heart on a shelf

Comes home from work on time and Saturdays are his and mine

We get greasy together under the cover of some good old American steel

In the polebarn back there, muscle-bound memories we rebuild

Sundays are God’s, he says — how he leads the way, putting all striving aside for the day

On his knees each night in prayer

No need to prove himself to me ever again since he put me on a pedestal there in his heart of gold

Our house on a hill, our kids and our farm

His eyes and his time and his life

His gifts to me, Amen and Amen

Boy Upon The Hill

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Nothing’s fitting

Not the double barrel shotgun you placed against my heart
Not your blindfold upon me anymore
Nor your murderous silence

I’ve outgrown your cowardice
The singe of alone you always left me is fading away

But the boy you killed, I’ll live with daily
Stolen from me, the memory gorgeous

The boy upon the hill calling me
Kissing me
After some schoolbell tolled

All these decades, still

Mahogany

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Young man, when I’m old
If I’ve lost the key
Please help my heart to enter in

Remember for me, if I’ve forgotten
What we’ve built
What we’ve saved from the fire

Tell how death brought forth life
On our paths that diverged
How we’re found together again

Fingerprints & Footsteps

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I'll see you in all of the places
I suppose
In both the tough and simple spaces
I know
I expect every mile
And mountain
Each roadside diner
And map dot 
Holds
The possibility and the not 
Of you
The pedestal and the truth
Of you
Had I the insight
To the strength of your tarnish
Would I have walked life
Alone
I can't know
Would that you'd see me
In all of the places
I've touched, but I know
You'll choose the not

Play There

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Make a place for play there 
Surround it with see-through walls
With Welcome signs
For the range of races
And good games to share there 

Take time together there
Enveloped in everlasting stories
With marching little men
For the giggling of girls
And making moments long there 
 

Man On The Roof

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You steal

Scenes abandoned and almost forgotten

You magnify

Memories faint but revival-worthy

You help

Hearts fighting yet weakened

You build 

Brotherly-love mortared with hope

You. Needed. Here. There.