Closer Look

Thin

How anything
is known
is so thin-
a skin of ice
over a pond
only birds might
confidently walk
upon. A bird’s
worth of weight
or one bird-weight
of Wordsworth.

Kay Ryan

Subway Seethe

What could have been the big to-do
that caused him to push me aside
on that platform? Was a woman who knew
there must be some good even inside
an ass like him on board that train?
Charity? Frances? His last chance
in a ratty string of last chances? Jane?
Surely in all of us is some good.
Better love thy neighbor, buddy,
lest she shove back. Maybe I should.
Itís probably just a cruddy
downtown interview leading to
some cheap-tie, careerist, dull
cul-de-sac heís speeding to.
Can he catch up with his soul?
Really, what was the freaking crisis?
Did he need to know before me
if the lights searching the crowdís eyes
were those of our train,or maybe
the train of who he might have been,
the person his own-heart-numbing,
me-shoving anxiety about being
prevents him from ever becoming?
How has his thoughtlessness defiled
who I was before he shoved me?
How might I be smiling now if heíd smiled,
hanging back, as though he might have loved me?

J. Allyn Rosser

There are many more on this Finlay wall, but this is all I could capture in a single pic.
Huge View
After we (inlcuding Patti’s long time friend, Sally) finished hanging new pictures on this wall, Emma ran to her room to retrieve her favorite photo of her mother.