Phil’s arms are swollen and weepy
The dust of chainsawed poison ivy.
After a night of little sleep,
He sipped his homeopathic water
And bathed and slept
And woke to repeat.
I would wish for greater effect . . .
Except I remember that
Even allopathic drugs
Take many days . . .
If they work at all.
I had reached full stop in my efforts.
The planning completed enough,
The doing remained . . .
And the doing was not happening.
In anguish, I cried aloud to the Lord
As I drove the backroads in the fall.
A quarter of an hour,
Passionately seeking help.
The next hour: the possibility of coaching.
Something I had not really considered,
But that shimmered before me
As water to a traveler dying of thirst.
Some years, driving in autumn
Feels like driving through a pumpkin.
This year, finally, driving the back roads
Feels like driving through a river of gold.
Driving to church, almost in silence,
I admired the sun filtering through the leaves—
Fall, finally.
Time to pray, alone in the car.
Peaceful, silent.
Singing and visiting,
Listening and praying.
Then a stop at Costco, to get frozen fruit
And hot dogs.
Time to read for fun,
And jumpstart homeopathy.
Talk to my parents,
About personal things and work things.
Sudoku.
And early to bed.
Some days fly by,
And some meander lazily,
A vacation in themselves.
A Sabbath.
After a day of emotional turmoil,
I faced, at almost midnight,
A paucity of choices before bed.
Learn more of marketing.
Write homeopathy notes.
Read Northanger Abbey annotations.
Or find a book for fun.
It’s been months since I read a book for fun.
So I did.
Sammy Keyes, what will I do
When I’m done with you?
I’m fine with eliminating triggers from my diet
For the next month.
But next time, maybe I shouldn’t make
No Bake Cookies for the boys.
On a grey day with more hours of work
Than I usually prefer,
I put aside the less pleasant distractions
And spent a few minutes
In the waning light of a fall day
Jumping on the trampoline
With a grinning, laughing, bouncing
Boy, blue eyes seeking mine.
