PR-559

At the Orchard End of the Orphanage

I remember occasionally the peach blossomed
Breeze at the orchard end of the orphanage:
The briar patch my mother had cast
Me into and I’ve wondered how it would be

Different if there had been
An anti-orphanage situation
Which then reminds me of when later my
Mother told me a fistful of wistful

Over her lost first love was earnest
To explain to show me to tell me
In the mirror where my now brown eyes
This time would have been blue
 

New PR-137

Now I Know the Rainbow

Just now in a pleasant place
I caught a mist of old sadness

Like gold when you think
How it’s passed

And yet it’s gold
Blessed with a delicate air

Of why was it there and born in pain?
Yes birth is the operant metaphor

As in all is in the rain
As in now I know the rainbow
 

New PR-230

Why a Rose Is So Sweet

–To Mehera

When my daughter was three years old
She got into a bottle of flavored baby aspirin
Thinking it was candy

We lived far from any near enough
Poison control center but we could call:
They said I had to hold her

Restrain her arms and force
Warm water down her throat
Over and over

It seemed no doubt to her
An interminable betrayal
But finally she vomited up the pills

They said otherwise she would die
So I think we all know about necessary pain
Once we see the big picture

But only God can see all
Of that so God knows the answer
To the problem of pain

I of course do not presume to know
Nor do I know why a rose is so sweet
It makes the angels weep
 

New PR-232

A River Filled with Rain

Babies pull on their own hair
Unaware they are causing their
Own miseries

Crying bitterly a river
At the pain but truth too
Is a river filled with rain

Not subject to the command
Of babies
Who must wait to understand