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The Function of Conjunction: A 37th ANNIVERSARY MUSING

Some things go well together

Even though they are

Quite different from each other,

Like salt and pepper,

Cats and dogs,

Ketchup and mustard.

The “and” conjoins the separate and individual

Into a kind of Unity.

Sometimes both sides of the “and” are part of the same thing,

Like thunder and lightning,

Matter and energy,

Numerator and denominator,

Lux et Veritas,

Or kindness and gratitude;

Where the “and” teases apart a Unity.

And for other dyadic phrases like,

For example, “Cathy and John”

Is the “and’ joining two into one,

Or is one teased apart into two?

Well, both actually,

As both reflect the whirling, swirling,

Undulating, revolving, mutating, and evolving

Dynamicism over 37 years,

Since we walked down a Stone aisle

In official and public declaration

Of our “and”, our Love.

A Love whose life-affirming preciousness and rarity

Has only grown over those years,

And for which, from my side of the “and”,

I am humbly grateful for your salt… and your pepper.

Birthdays

CLS 61 

One and three score,

Who could ask for more?

Yet, more is to come,

Regardless of desire, want, or wisdom.

That’s the way life is sometimes.

The wise call it fate,

the wizened are just late to emulate,

the former’s reforming perceptions,

Crafting exceptions, making it ok.

That’s the way life is sometimes.

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60 th Greetings to CZ

Three score is six decades,

Enough time to know some things about life. 

Enough time to look back

And to look forward.

To consider the places you’ve been,

The persons you’ve been in those places,

The person you are in this place, here and now,

Persons you will be, there and then,

All You’s connected through time and DNA

And memory,

Each contributing to your Self.

Separate and unto its own,

The creator of  a world

Amongst many worlds,

Your world, at six decades,

That is, three score.

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Just checking in  27

Used to be that I would check in a lot,

Hearing your restless scratching on the crib mattress,

Or gurgling bowel, peristalsing your dinner

Through you like a sacred river,  

Some becoming You

But with some left over at the end,  

Always some at the end.

Now well into the third decade,

Your third decade, the time having also  

Flowed like a river,

It’s not about scratching or digestion,

But more about watching the direction,  

And wondering who is checking in

On whom?

Which is all good, speaking to remarkable,  

Sustaining bonds, of love-tempered gratitude  

For sharing a place where we can watch  

Each other’s river flow on and on,

To our own respective seas,      

Together,    

Just checking  in.                                                                                                                                                           

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Jenny's 30th Birthday 

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Milestone #30

As miles go by

The passing landscapes of our lives

Assume a kind of soporific

Regularity,

Like a cartoon

Where one character chases another

Against a rolling backdrop that repeats

Over and over until there is some resolution;

The quarry caught or escaped, then

A new landscape brought in, and

A milestone declared.

But milestones become millstones

When we get caught within the layered tempos

Of the rolling landscapes

And forget

We are both cartoon character and cartoonist,

Pursuer and pursued, writer and reader.

With Serendipity and Luck as partners,

We plot the course, set the expectations,

And strike out,

Girded by the knowledge

That we are loved, inspired

By the love we have to give, and

Grateful for the beauty of

The landscapes passed and

For those yet to come, which,

Whether variegated or repetitious,

Become our sacred story.

8 July 2023                                 

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Does This Poem Ever End? 

A Collection of Words Rustled Together in Seeming Stochastic Fashion on the Occasion of Jay Pottenger’s 70th Birthday

3 March 2020

 Seventy years is no small feat, 

And one which we now all fete

With glasses raised 

And words of praise 

That let you know you are quite neat.

That is, in the wonderful sense of the word,

Not whether one sows sloppiness and discord, 

But rather we're just a bit keen 

On honoring your mien,

Along with other fans and adoring hordes. 

For seven decades, that's three score and ten.

Just doesn't come around again, 

We’ve just one shot to hit the mark 

To celebrate the joy and with a spark, 

To do this well, and then, when

All is said and the course is run,  

When we've had our little bit of fun, 

We will know deep in our hearts 

or other body parts, 

Our celebration of Jay is well done…. 

As it is right and meet, to raise up, to fete, 

Something so neat, as Jay’s seventy year feat….

To fete the feat, that is our fate

To celebrate and cerebrate,

To drink wine of fine appellate,

To eat cake that is chocolate …. 

Though there's more to say, I can’t resist,

And both my serious and silly instincts insist

To lastly, that is, if I may, 

To Professor Pottenger, that is, Jay 

Offer wishes for the happiest of birthdays.  

Omni sunt ad finem ad absurdum 

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Rocker #68

Years hence, I see you, as if in a film,

Soft focus, in a garden triumphant with colors,

Impossible colors.

Your rocker eases comfortably back and forth,

Not going anywhere excepting the few inches traversed

And then reversed as you rock back,

Over and over like the Ocean tides,

Or your very breathing- quietly essential, unpretentious.

Both rocking and respiration are a kind of personal metronome

Marking each sacred moment, flagging each ephemeral second,

And reminding you are contemporaneous with eternity

Making possible the colors of late autumnal gardens

And the impossible love I have for you.

 1 November 2022