it's been a long day

i'm thinking out loud   or

on paper   after 

talking with colin's grandfather

about france   he was remembering 

a better time

when cars were big   and floated down the road

and seams on silk stockings

were meant to run true

but   of course   it wasn't better   the headlines

screamed

as loudly of pestilence   war   famine   and death   

nothing is new   he says   headlines change   lines on automobiles change  

there are no seams    but it's all the same   only different

~

dear terri,

     i can't see the sun, it set below the hills, cooling its heels in the pacific. the clouds are pink and blue, baby colors, and soft, and i miss you so. 

love,

lynn

~

but   of course i rip it up   and watch color fade 

from the sky  

and feel safe   and distant   

from others' pain

remembering when it was mine   feeling sick

as thoughts

come back   helpless before them   

but nothing

as tangible as france   no blood

no sound

only echoless fragments of despair

and the misery of time

and think   even babycakes couldn't fix this

though   i wish she'd try   

~

and from this revery colin's grandfather

rouses himself

from his comfortable chair

pours amber whiskey into his glass

and tells me   once again   self-indulgence

is not becoming

and growls his throaty growl

this soft stone of a man   in his stone house

that he built with hard stone

from the fields

this man who knows something of life

and death

whose only self-indulence comes in the form

of gruff words   and a tumbler of peace