Tides

The cobbled road of broken shells

lead her to the edge of the ocean,

a dividing line of high tide 

from the unencumbered sand,

then another line, where the surf

had broken and left a loamy trace

of white. She drew her toe

through the lacy imprint, 

where water had traced 

proof of existence as pretty 

as doily. A small wave

came, a remnant of 

something reducing

and reducing like a number

dividing into infinity.

It reached for the sand, the

fold of a transparent sail trying

to snare the slightest wind.

It removed the mark she left,

erasing the small valley that

sought to prove she was there,

on that small expanse of sand.

A shell caught in the intake of 

the ocean and rolled ridiculously 

back toward the water. How many

times had it been carried to the land, 

then to the sea, falling over itself

in the rise and fall of tides until

its outside was smooth like a

layer of curved glass? She 

said, that is a pretty one,

then let the sea take it.

The Last Stop

Embellishing old memories to mean new things. It's a sort of re-purposing of words... taking a discarded thought and making something pretty out of it.



Sadness is
a swimming
pool, rimmed
in a thin fingernail
of cement.

Sitting, at night,
on its edge,
the water was
Illuminated from
underneath.

Feet naked,
thoughts jagged,
I thought you could
save me.

I stared
into the bottle
of a drink I
didn't want.

I handed it back
to you. I didn't
speak when I left.

I searched for my
shoes as my footprints
evaporated behind
me on the sliver of
concrete, an erasing of
existence.

It felt like
that. Like I
had never been.

I doubt you
turned to watch me
leave, vanishing
footprints, behind the
wooden fence.

There was nothing
in the alley but
my empty hands.

Relic

Thinking about Kentucky, and all the old things out of which our oral history grows.


Salvation still lives
On the forest floor
Bound up in patina,
Sheathing the old
Claw foot tub like
The shiny lining of a
Tide battered shell.
It has rested there
Since before my
Memory, the tub,
A motionless
Ship clogging the
Narrow vein of a
Mountain creek.
Many times have I
Passed it, walking
With my mother.
She takes quick breaths
Amid bewilderment.
My grandpa was
Baptized in that tub.
That was the story-
And I forget how the
Tub made its passage
From a house to
This joint in the
Mountain to become:
A trough for the cattle,
A vessel for rain,
A small rusted dam
Covered over with
The things that burrow
Into the promise of
Life everlasting.
Jesus is found even
In the loneliness of
Places.

Family Protrait

For my son Ethan, the budding artist...


we are goggle eyed

hovering in the air
like waifs with spindle
arms. handless.
appendages speared
haphazardly into our
circular torsos. we smile
although with absent
noses we can’t
smell the lead filling
our bones. our single
line check mark mouths
remain mute in our
white paper existence.
my son is armed with
his pencil and says,
I made this for you.
he offers it like a rare
flower bouquet he might
have made on the
side of a road on
a Caribbean island.
and so precious it
is to me, like a gem
encrusted with the
warmth of the summer
ocean.

Dream

The miscellany of my dream,

The bits of features, eyes,

Lips, floating in an aberrant

Cloud, cling to me still

In the morning. It is dense,

A fog that swallows the

Reality of wakefulness.

I think about it again

And again, the dream--

a disjointed mess

Of a thing with the gravity

Of a dying star. I see faces

Familiar in a way that

Draw my heart sharply

To the surface, like pulling

Strings away from a fraying

Rug. Is it you, though,

 in this dream, the weight

of you, that hangs over

me, separating you like oil

From the sea of others?

You, who whittle the

fragments of sentiment

into sharp knives that

incise the shell of my sleep?

I  am forced to wear your

memory like a winter coat

in the middle of August.

Coming Home

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18

There is a picture. It is of my grandfather, John Cassady. He is standing at the edge of a hill, hands in his pockets, looking over the valley below. Around him, the landscape is in autumn twilight, a burning of yellows and reds, the colors of low flame before the extinguishing cold of winter. My grandfather is in profile, his chin raised a little, and it seems to me he is seeing into something I cannot, as I am bound by the confines of the picture.

I think of my grandfather now, at the end of my grandmother, Irene's, life. I think of him in this picture in particular. I think of it, because I know, for all the years that they have been separated, he has been standing on the edge of the expanse of heaven, waiting. Waiting for her to come home. Hands in his pockets. Waiting. 

The sadness we all have felt during her suffering, the grief at having to sever the tethers of the earthly love we have so long bound her up in, seems unbearable. Our human hearts do not want to let go. And why would we want to? Grandma, at least for me, had always been. Even at my age, I had never imagined her not being there.

These things about her that had always been: her peels of laughter, her love of us as children, and the same love she showed to our children. Dinners at Christmas, and chicken and dumplings for any occasion. Watching Hee Haw during Saturday Night sleepovers. Roses. Her house full of black and white pictures of her mother, and her sisters, of her children, the girls all in matching Mary Janes and cardigan sweaters, of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Sitting in church with her at Gethsemane. Her loyalty and her selflessness, giving of anything she had. 

But, through all of this journey, through all of these painful steps to the end of her beautiful life, I see him. Grandpa. Waiting. And he was never the most patient man. He always was one step ahead of where she was. But, for her, he has had all the time in world. Patiently waiting. And, I cannot tell you how comforting it is to me, that he has finally left that post he has kept for so long, watching over her, to meet her as she finally comes home. Her real home, in heaven. 

So, in my mind, the picture changes a little. My grandfather is still on that hill, looking over the valley. But grandma is now there, too, grasping his hand, and looking out, seeing that something I cannot.

God comforts me. He comforts us all. Because the thing that Grandma and Grandpa can see that we don't is this: they are watching over all of us. And will always be patiently waiting.

The Passage

there are years all over the floor

collecting in invisible piles discarded

newspaper frail words slip unnoticed

into grooves of the floor it's hard

to distinguish good years from

bad they all shed themselves

and leave the course skin of 

irreversible time behind if

I sift through them the years

my years like flipping through

aged paperbacks at the flea 

market I can surely seize the 

ones I don't remember but

do remember they bear

a tag of significance but 

you can't hold in your

lap something that has already

evaporated time pours itself

out thick and sweet like honey

dissolving what it can as it goes