Oh, how I miss your solemn eyes
Dark brown pools of devotion
and doggy wisdom.
Oh, when I stare into the
bright black buttons
of a puppy’s giddy newness,
I know how soon
he will have ancient wisdom,
and leave us, too.
poem- alteration April 5, 2016
Love is not love
if it alters when alteration finds
It is an ever fixed mark, said Shakespeare.
Constancy is a quality of mind
that removes sparks of fear.
Love is love
when the word can be relied
upon and expressions of affection
will be supplied, for
faithfulness in word and deed
is the essence of true love’s need.
poem-hearts April 4, 2016
Our broken heart
has not mended;
the hole of your absence
will never fill.
But crushed and anguished
though it is,
there is room for love
still.
So we open to new
affections even
while we’re missing you.
We welcome new joy
and celebrate your memory,
as we remember you
in reverie.
poem-gulf April 1, 2016
You open up before me
a gulf of possibility
things I never considered
complications I did not foresee.
You open up before me
a black hole of opportunity
devouring expectations
creating alternative realities
of what my future might be.
.
.
(“Thanks, Des,” she says
dripping with irony.)
poem-bouquet March 3, 2016
Bright blooms
suggest spring:
carefree days,
novelty,
Bright blooms
celebrate spring:
gratitude,
optimism.
Summer soon.
poem-return February 26, 2016
Two geese fly
over the lake
bringing spring
with each flap
of their wings.
poem-lack February 16, 2016
How strange
that the lack of something
weighs more greatly
than its presence.
poem-ready January 23, 2016
You’re ready to go,
bouncing on that bed,
tired of physio, doctors, bad food,
and a four bed room.
You want the quiet privacy of home
and worked hard to earn it.
You’re ready.
poem-vacant January 19, 2016
How strange
that this space that was always filled by you
is vacant now.
Some time,
I don’t know when,
you stopped paying rent and disappeared.
Now the corner where you lived
has fallen into disrepair
and when I look for what used to be
I see only
moldy fragments in the space
that was yours.
poem-today January 15, 2016
Grief today
is not like yesterday’s;
today it’s a ball, lodged deep in the throat,
instead of yesterday’s hovering cloud.
Tomorrow grief may be rain washing away every thought,
or the laughter of melancholy memories or perhaps
I won’t be able to keep tears at bay.
It’s impossible to say.
Grief is complicated,
that way.
Shawn L. Bird 