BETWEEN SIXTEEN AND SIXTY-ONE

Between Sixteen and Sixty-One

Still full of life at sixty-one, you turned and looked up
into my eyes when I touched your shoulder at our old
neighborhood reunion. We lingered in a warm embrace
and reminisced about happy times together when we
experienced first love at the curious age of sixteen.

I sensed in your inviting smile, your gentle touch, and
your steady gaze that you had loved another well but
longed for something more of life, something intense
and daring, something you felt you had missed.

During those moments, I longed for that something too,
and I sensed I had missed it in the life we could have
shared during those years between sixteen and sixty-one.

We lingered in a warm embrace once more and said
goodbye before you walked away. If you had been free
to share the rest of your life with me, I would have
chased after you and spoken more freely from my heart.

But know that I will always remember our reunion with
sweet frustration, and I will pray during nights to come that
in some life we may have yet to live, fate will provide a way
for us to discover the joys of life and love we could have
shared during those years between sixteen and sixty-one.

Return in My Memories

Sometimes, in the quiet of evening, my
memories take me back to my hometown.
As always, I head down Eighty-Second
Street and pass over the streetcar tracks
that run through my old neighborhood.

Just past old man Kopp’s garage where
he lived and filled the air with the aroma
of Prince Albert pipe tobacco, I see it.
It is the grey house with white trim that
provided a safe place for me during my
troubled youth.

Mom’s flower beds of zinnias, red and
white roses, hollyhocks, and nasturtiums
lend color to the mostly barren front yard.
The elm trees along the driveway still
shade the house from the summer’s
oppressive western sun.

Mom rushes out the front door to greet
me, followed by my Dad, three brothers,
and sister Sharon. Mom and Sharon give
me big hugs. Dad says, “Welcome home,
son.” Then the three of them hurry inside
to put a Sunday dinner on the table that
Mom promises will be topped-off with
my favorite, her homemade cherry pie.

I stay outside and talk with my brothers.
We reminisce and josh each other. They
update me on what they’ve been up to.
Henry got his first job and bought a new
BB gun. Ernie got a foxy new girlfriend.
Not to be outdone, Jim bragged that he
caught an eight-pound catfish on the Blue
River with just a kernel of yellow corn.

Inside, I stuff myself with fried chicken,
mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, corn
on the cob, coleslaw, Dad’s homemade
bread with butter and Mom’s wild grape
jelly, sweet tea, and cherry pie with home
churned ice cream. It is those memories
of Sunday dinner with my family in my
safe place long ago that sustain me still.

Make a List

Listen to the people in your life. Are there those among them who engage in mindless prattle, complain, nag, and criticize, or potshot and play off a third person at your expense?

If so, they pollute your creative environment and sap you of the juices that make your rhyme, free verse, and prose come alive.

As a wise and gifted writer once advised a gathering of poets, “Make a list of the culprits, whether relative, friend, or foe, and when you get back home, call each of them on the phone and tell them to GET THE HELL OUT OF YOUR LIFE!”

One Forever

We promised one forever
when we were young and pure
and filled with hopes and dreams
of home and family and sharing
and the best that we could be.

But when life's realities
bred tension and anger,
you complained and nagged,
and I complained and yelled.
Tension and anger grew
and exploded into rage,
after which came sorrow,
forgiveness, and try again.

In each successive cycle,
we became more abusive,
you in your way, and I in mine,
and as time slipped away,
we destroyed our hopes and dreams
of home and family and sharing
and the best that we could be.

You blamed me, and I blamed you,
and when there was no resolve,
we parted painfully with malice.

As I reflect on those years and regret
my complicity, one thought consoles
me: We kept our promise of one
forever with the births of our two
children, and together in those gentle
souls, we are the best that we could be.

Nature’s Pawns

We are created as nature provides, then taught
to control, if not suppress, our instinct to procreate
until we have matured enough to raise, as well as
bring forth, the next generation.

Clothed in romantic notions of self-importance,
dogma, and other vain delusions, we create cultures
with ideals and rituals that give higher purpose and
meaning to our lives.

Those who question the effort are summarily touted
among other things as cynical and heretical. Those
of one culture often dismiss, isolate, challenge, or
slaughter those of another culture.

But fact, reason, and experience make clear the true
character, intension, and power of nature over us
to all but those unable to escape the vain delusions
of culture.

What we know for sure is what we observe. We are
born, reproduce, and decline in sexual desire along
with potency, after which comes death, ridding the
earth of unnecessary clutter and making room for
the next generation of nature’s pawns.

Frank Zahn is an author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His publications include nonfiction books, articles, commentaries, book reviews, and essays; novels; short stories; and poetry. Currently, he writes and enjoys life at his home among the evergreens in Vancouver, Washington, USA. For details, visit his website, www.frankzahn.com.