Cleaning my desk,

I opened an envelope stuffed

with keepsakes, cards, letters.

Crinkled against time, some tattered

with wear, I saw an old familiar address.

Pulling it from the pile was like pulling

a friend from the reservoirs of memories.

I opened it, the dust had settled on his words

as ashes and sand settled on his grave.

He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed

with cancer …

He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments

of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.

Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken

of a seagull taking flight.

It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for

from the past.

©  CMM  2013

Running on a wooded ridge

I stopped in

reverent pause

to  see the water

brought by summer rains.

The Missouri River ‘s fury

floods spring’s tilled crops.

The fields hide in waiting waters,

the gray still-stagnant waters slow to recede

taking homes.

The hopes of farmer’s toil…

as he sits at a

nearby diner.

Sweat-dried hat placed

on the counter,

his burnt brown brow wrinkled

from worry.

The Missouri River

still continues to flow

near-by…

now back within

the levees,

quieter now ,

the rains have stopped.

©  CMM  2011

Perched below the shaded trees,
cools the sun’s luncheon rays.
Crossed in contemplation knees
are the enchanted Shakespeare days.

Tempered heat of springtime lawn

varid carpet lays beneath.
Lurching words without alarm,
bid from metamorphous sleep.

Anthony and Cleopatra fight,
as sonnets woo the lady’s fare.
Henry the IV comes from the night,
poets and lovers, a wispy pair.

The yeoman genius now buried in tomb,
leaves with the youth a place to learn.
While even when he left the room,
all other works are now discerned.

copyrighted:   2005
CMM