Tonight

Tonight

The old embrace

Their place

Slumped in soft chair

Or on the edge of a bed

The only reminders

Of what was once

The wrapped arms

They held

Or held them

The starting furnace

Footsteps in a hallway

A flushing toilet

None are the air

Rushing through trees

Bounding in youth

With joyous screams

Through grass

All the minutes

Must be now alone

As an old head

Strains to blot the past

Away

Like blue ink spilled

On a white plain

Changed forever

Where clouds and sky

Imagined for seconds

Bring joy and pain

In remembrance

Barry G. Wick

To the Day

To the Day

Six years ago

began the last month

of my mother's life

I get up from bed

steaming with memory

of that time in our lives

My life begins now

as I go to the kitchen

thinking of pancakes

and coffee 

with cream and sugar

the way she liked it

Headed towards 68

I've become 5

walking

into the livingroom

of the old house

with it's green wool

beneath my feet

Mother reads the paper

on a loveseat

by the floor to ceiling

bay window

her cup sitting 

on the round

mahogany table

I pick up her cup

she turns a page

I turn a page

to begin my life

with coffee

Barry G. Wick