Poem for Aunt Shirley

The Facebook posting

Of your passing only

Just now having been seen

Brings me around

To recollection of prior

And deeper truths

You illuminated

Your entire life

Through the abiding electric

Connection you maintained

Not battery powered as  

Was the chair in which

You sat uncomplaining

So much as you moved

Yourself about by dint

Of love’s most enduring

And knowing power

Never remotely operated

But always in the flesh itself

And never imprisoned

Notwithstanding the pain

But sitting high on a corona 

Of good words and deeds 

So now may only the bluest

Of eternity’s flowers

Be laid out to denote
The much of you
That still remains

A Passerine Fancy

 

 
A journey of
Ten thousand lashes

Marks the sparrow’s path

Without record
Of its passing
Air takes its bite from the

Passerine’s supplest  flesh

While with beak hard pressed
It looks askance
And rarely to never

Dares to laugh