The Majestic View

My window looks out on salt water,

For miles between the Olympics and Cascades.

Yet it’s this corner upstairs, where I witness,

All life’s beauty and when it fades.

I see a hundred years of history,

In saw marks powered by Penn Cove tides…

The loss of hero poets, cold weather,

Deaths of pets, loves time divides.

There’s a war brewing deep inside me…

Peruse past photos or the window’s view?

I’m prone to celebrate the past,

Hope screams, “Embrace the new”!

Mortality's nipping at my heels.

I’m walking a tightrope on life’s cusp,

In this corner of my upstairs’ room,

Looking for oil while starting to rust.

The Polar Bear Rug At the Queen Bee Mill

With Doug DuBois at Queen Bee Mill Ruins, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 1969

When the first snow draped the Dakotas,

The horizon blurred into white…

Hundreds of miles of grayscale plains

Only changed when fading to night.

We fled to the ruins at first sun,

To slay our first polar bear..

Our trophy rug, of course melted,

Yet our snapshot proves it was there.

Oh! These old photos stir memories.

So many adventures that were mine,

Became monumental bookmarks,

As we aged and ran out of time.

Nearly fifty years later, we are melted away like the polar bear rug.

Under the Big Top and Over the Hill

This circus, under Earth's big top,

Is my life in one short show .

A rogue wind may blow the tent away;

Without warning, acts come and go.

The philosophical wise quotes,

Suddenly appear quite trite and untrue…

Thoughts that seem really important

Change when the end comes to you.

So many hard times in my life,

Were countered by wonderful days.

I peaceably walked through foreign towns;

A welcome smile in a stranger's gaze.

The elderly in a high wire act,

Attract no gambler’s bets.

Old men walking tightropes,

No longer have safety nets.

Days now are spent remembering,

So little time to harbor fears…

I lived a life with no regrets,

Except want for a hundred more years.