Solstice

In the shade
of a breezed and green
 corner of Hunterdon County New Jersey

I sat and watched families return from trail
the bicyclists clacked and graveled,
everyone brought their own in laden racks, or stowed
in the back of pickups,
 when they could rent one for five dollars a day

The old Asian lady
camped at the picnic table
speaking to her cell phone
 and tapping to her tablet

Bluebirds hustled for a worm
everyone drank a lot of water
and were scantily clad
on the longest day
 of the year

Shards of Glass

Shards of glass twinkle in morning light
in the mounded landfill before Secaucus

Rivulets of erosion
run down its sides

Drifting

The snow swirls, in
  great cyclonic torrents,
  pushed. Swept horizontally, then
  upward in
  tornadic columns,
  from roof to
  roof, bough
  to earth &
back again

Lara shovels the
front walk
and the
boys play,
above the
brick.

Our
radiometer
spins in
mad noon rush,
gaining speed.

Our snow
yard down-
across-diagonal. Rushing.

Brother / Mother

On the day this week that a support group for sibling survivors of suicides held its regular monthly meeting, I tripped on the way to work, tumbling to the sidewalk wearing a pair of my late brother's jeans that I'd kept. I tore the knee pant, scraped and bruised my knee and elbow. I was shaken for a few days.

Later that week I read an essay devoted to Jean Harris in the Times, read of her anger and scorn and petty vindictiveness and despair and "brittle pride" and "florid hysteria." One woman said to the author, "I haven't thought about her for a long time;" the other replied, "neither had I."

I thought of my own mother then, and how, in her own, unique way, she and Harris must have been alike, and I thought of my late brother Steven. He must have absorbed many of these traits too early, too well, perhaps the most toxic ones. Yet he also understood and recognized some of those same things about my mother, too completely.

But perhaps not enough about himself.

Seat Portrait Style #1: The Blocker

A prim, tightly-wound, humorless matron is seated with iPhone in the aisle seat of a three across, has a banana peel and purse on the (middle) seat beside her. Empty window seat at the end.

No one in Short Hills or Millburn would want to sit beside a woman filing her nails with an emery board or risk banana moisture on their bottom. She's a blocker, opening the field, giving me the seam.

Oh wait, she's less prim, if no less grim. Taking off her suit jacket in East Orange she reveals shoulders, top of torso, she turns younger. Fixing her straps. Getting ready for her day. The public filing in an enclosed space is still entitled and offensive, but there's the free seat between us. She's clasped and closed in her iPhone world. Dour stern unsmiling.

But wonderful , startlingly straight posture. Her suit's long, below the knee. She puts her coat back on to leave. Her collar askew, half up, half down.

No Free Lunch

With the Patch, you get what you pay for. Which is even less than the weekly Independent. In truth, though, all of the local news coverage has either withered, deteriorated or entirely gone away. Shoe leather is no longer expended; instead it's smart phone pictures of adolescents dressed for their prom arriving in antique cars. Six months later and it has yet to be reported the Unitarian Church bought the adjacent Dangler funeral home property and is set to expand.

A diligent reporter would, for starters, subscribe to every church and synagogue's weekly or monthly newsletter. Oh, for Norman Rauscher and the Summit Herald. Now the Bank Street building no longer even bears the Herald name.

Love Poem (1)

Dear dear Nancy Dann
You befriended me, and helped upend a life
Your kindness and grace
Helped save a soul like me
You are like Charles Foster Kane's Rosebud, sprung to life
Young, beautiful, thoughtful, vibrant
  A teacher

Somewhere, your story is out there
And though I may never find it
How did the rest of your life go?
I hope you found happiness
Your smile lit the sky, and the world dissolved
 deserved to find it