TIME CHECK

Time Check

How frequent were those glances
over his sleeping shoulder
to see their little clock
and count down the minutes
to night’s inevitable outcome.

Now the view is unobscured,
though the time matters not
and the saddest of days arrives daily
and the bed is an empty place,
too big and cold for a sole proprietor

Just Whistle

The bashful among us,
and the coy,
may appear to the casual eye
to be the same,

whereas intent is required of the coy
and the bashful are not so constrained
and don’t intend much at all,
except perhaps to appear not bashful,

a ruse which generally fails,
although whistling a happy tune
has been offered as a solution,
but the truly bashful won’t do it

and the coy, of course,
would never engage
in such transparent behavior
and avoid it unless actually musical.

Emeritus

Parkview Drive rests at an early hour,
without tell-tale traffic
and before the sun better reveals
more recent influences.

Its stick built homes, in an older style,
date between the great wars
and upon brief observation
offer the appearance of days gone by.

Any original owners have long since departed.
The cedar roofs are also gone,
as are their more modern replacements
and even the replacements of those as well.

Near one end of the avenue
a figure steps from a clapboard colonial
and into the half-lit calm
of an emergent morning.

Though once considered a newcomer,
the Professor, as he is called,
and his equally credentialed spouse
have been in residence for many years.

In the past it was his practice
to enjoy long, vigorous walks
out through the neighborhood,
up the steep climb to the Reservoir, and onward.

These days, he does not get far,
shuffling but a few doors from his own
before slowly coming about
and retracing his tentative steps.

The professor is a genial fellow,
viewed as neighborly and polite,
but in his current condition
he walks early and sometimes unnoticed,

thus avoiding inquiries as to his health
as he ponders his weakened state,
his hapless knees, eroding joints
and feet unwilling to convey their exact location.