She’s earnest
in all the best ways.
Plasters on that quivering smile
faces the crowd
does her best,
but her best
is not good enough.
Earnestness is not enough.
But I tried!
is not enough.
She needs to be committed
to earnest effort
toward excellence,
maybe for years,
and maybe even then
her earnest desire will not
be enough.
Desire must lead to skill
mingle with effort
sprinkle with luck
and maybe then
earnest will be
enough.
Those childish promises
made with fervent belief
prove the power of intention:
Fealty sworn with hooked pinkies
in confident conviction.
‘Marry in haste
repent in leisure,’
they say;
we repent
in long embraces,
loving looks,
and thankfulness.
We repent,
wrapped leisurely
together in sleep.
We repent
in steadfastness,
temperance,
and patience.
I wait
in the hollow place
for you
You happily celebrate
the concavities
but appreciate
the complexities
of the convexities.
In hollow places
grace erases traces
of solemnity and
embraces totality,
while
I wait
for you.
My father age twenty-five.
his desires divided,
stood in line with naked men
waiting for the army to welcome them.
They listened to his slow, weak heart,
and said he’d stay home to do his part.
My father age twenty-five
managed to stay alive.
While his friends went off to foreign shores,
at home he built bombers for the war.
His friends returned broken and stayed,
with their damaged mates from their brigades.
Dad was whole and grieved the loss
of friendships torn by life or death.
On the decades rolled
and now each soul
who stood entwined within that line
is gone, save dad, whose slow, frail heart
turned out to be his strongest part.
Dad thinks back upon that line,
and celebrates birthday ninety-nine.
Shawn L. Bird 