On getting older

My son turned 36 this week.  That's on the down side, sliding into 40.  It's weird, looking at your children and knowing they are adults.  Fully grown men.  Men with beards and bald spots, and arthritis kicking in, and children in Middle School.  It is cliche to remark on the fleetness of time and it's inescapable march.  But it is absolutely true.  I swear I was just 40 myself, wasn't I?  How did we get to this point?  I remember he was a little boy and blah, blah, blah, some stuff happened, and now here we are are.  One of us got old.  I'm sure it's not me.

Maybe it is my husband's fault.  He's definitely getting older!  :)

At the end

Then, at last, I'll lay me down
In the hard, dry soil of home
Beneath the hot, hot Texas sun
In the place I call my own

Grass won't grow in the sandy loam
In the shade of the desert myrtle.
Let shale and sand and dry, white stone
Cover my earthly portal.

Katydids will sing my dirge.
Mockingbirds will weep.
Grey doves in the prairie grass
Will soothe me in my sleep.

Plant roses there above my head
and roses at my feet.
In roses I will make my bed
With roses I shall sleep.

When my time in the Texas sun
Is at it's quiet end,
Lay me here to rest and ruin
Where my heart has always been.

A Child in Love

I fell in love when I was still a child and didn't know it would be forever

but it was.

Sometimes love is like that. 

Two people meet and time has no bearing

Age doesn't matter

I loved him and he loved me and we were just children

But now we are growing old and gray and time has

stamped us with pain and loss

and still we love

And when I look into his blue eyes, I see them watery with pain and

my heart aches that I can't make it better

So we sit each night, together, and pass the time and try not to think

too much about it's passing

We don't do the math.  

We don't look out to see how many more years we will be together

We don't know what will be, 

so we sit and think about today and our past together

And the life we've have shared, that started when we were children 

and in love.

I sing the song of the western highway, to the piston heart beat and rolling rubber.

Flat and wide, brush-stroked east and west, north, south,

Spanning flowing water and still, over mountains, across the flat unbroken plain,

To move the herd of man and machine where buffalo roamed.

Speeding past the great rail-bound ties of our grandfather’s travel.

Who first crossed here, on foot and steed, in wood and cloth and pain and loss?

Whose children’s bones are left unmarked in lands traversed

Before the time of concrete, steel and asphalt, hot tar and bitter north?

The herd and I, in comfort, pass green mile markers, and the highway basks.

Autumn Breeze

A bright, brisk breeze blew October in

Trees sighed, relieved, flicked off their brown leaves 

Stretched their woody fingers to the sky

And, shivering off the stragglers, settled in to sleep.

The live oaks, embarrased for their bare-barked brothers,

Shook their green, green covers, tossed acorns about,

Waved softly at autumn's passing,

And watched for winter's promised coming

E-reading

I love books.  I love the way they look and feel and smell.  I love going to the book store and looking through the shelves.  I've had an undying love for books since I learned to read.  I spent the bulk of my youth with my "nose stuck in a book".

I have resisted the move to the e-reader.  Over the past few months, I've been reading on my phone and last week I got a tablet.  I told myself it was the physical presence of the book that was the reason for my reluctance.

I knew better.  The only thing that keeps me from reading constantly is running out of books to read.  Now I don't have that issue.  Since September, I've downloaded over 130 books.  That's in 5 months.

On a Winter Windy Morning

Flags weather-vaning at attention
Flemenco flags flashing around their poles
Straining against their grommets
Eager to fly along
Live oaks in full leaf waving as I passed
Under cake-frosting January clouds.

Moon Music

I saw the moon in a pale, blue sky this morning
On cirrus lines, a musical staff
The moon, a ghostly whole-note E
The sun playing off the night's last song.
At earth's slow rythym.