(PENANCE)....Prose? Poetry? Prose poetry? Neither?! You decide!
Life moves like a circle
The circle hangs patiently above
A mother's womb
High above a pale blue ocean
Where seagulls cry like a newborn baby's open
Mouth, thrown from the illumined water
The fragrance of blue baby eyes
and the baby smile
Don't cry now child,
Mom must rest, rest
Mother's weary, dark, and cold
hear the pain flow
While father prays for forgiveness
"Draw the curtain, she needs rest."
'Rest,' so oft-invoked,
and 'school,’ school baby child
Turn left, then right, go round back
To the red brick building with the
Gold Cross on the door
Bold, like Martin Luther
The world waits
You're a special child
Special, gregarious, and smart
Pretty and sweet
Just like mother
Waiting tables for a dime
Smell the aroma loom 'cross street
Little Italy in the house where Grandma
Holds a lit cigarette
that pillows between wrinkles and
a pale yellow curtain draped back
peering eyes through the porthole of
a frosty, living room window, fading
The child wild and alone
Delicious moment on the eyes
Moving along, one human motif
in space and time
Grandma will teach you death someday baby child
O' smile baby, smile to make me laugh
to make this all better
Around and round the circle baby goes!
When grown, across
Marred earth tattered black and whites
Football cheers in flight
Blonde, porcelain-faced gal wearing dad in locket
Gazes on a stadium electric
#44 with white helmet
A father, yet
Fatigued in room with buzzing
Machines, mint green gowns, gurgling TVs
A sea of blank faces
In the waiting room a boy sighs,
But he’s a man
She was nearby
Both enraptured in a midnight reflection
The shape of a halo
Or was it the song of the circle
All the while
Wherever you are
It conspires to conceal itself
The secret of the circle...a sole, pale arc
Burns with grace and hope,
Grief and magic stars high above
To which we open ourselves
Naked, willing, swaying
Over the abyss
One roaring, eternal flame
