The Poetry Of.
Francis Masat...............................................
Late August in Maine
Enough of dawn
moons
perched on black
mountains
beyond moldy mushroomed woods.
I'm finished
with sunsets spent
with warm gin,
with slowly splintered
black masts
among drooping sails.
I'm no lattéd laptop tickler,
but neither am I black coffee
boiled
in frosty oaken smoke.
Give me taxi fumes
and noise - noise! -
that crowds a street
into a urined alley
with peep-eyed doors.
Let me return
to human kind,
to dim rooms,
to where time leaps
off my hands instead.
At least until
next spring.
The Means
I find
my parent's checkbooks -
I skim
from past to present
black marks
here
red scribbles
there
an arrow
there to here
among the minus signs -
Bills
I never knew existed -
PAID
with no word said
lines thinned
in long lean years,
multiplied
as I grew older
they tell a story, though
it's hard to find
the means they used
in doing what was best
Her Own Stone Soup
- White Street Pier, Key West
Some days,
hot stones in water -
stone soup her only meal;
no one came with food.
In time, we laughed
about stone soup,
crying in disbelief
over gourmet meals.
But for this rare dragonfly,
each year became an hour
I cry again today
as I pass my hand
through her final grains.
They drift on a breeze
and fall into a current.
She has become
her own stone soup.
Poet's Note:
Dedicated to Bob, Pat, Jerry, Dale, Margo,
Helen, Theo, Emil, Jenny, Agnes, Walt and many others.
Key West's reef, beaches, parks, and piers now host as
many peaceful endings they host beautiful beginnings.
