Faith

Wrote this after almost falling by trying to look where I was going when I really couldn't see.

            Faith

When going down stairs in the dark,
best descend by feel and trust
the regular rise and run of the unseen
steps rather than stare in fear
and stumble over what you can
only dimly see, if at all; a final
jolt is better than a long fall.

Alternatives

This one might not need the last two lines.

      Alternatives

A young lady sits with her yellow pad
at the picnic table, pauses, writes, pauses,
then writes again. Is it a love letter,
a shopping list, a legal pleading, a poem,
or some other inventory of desire?
(Why do we not recognize or remember
some wants and needs unless we write them down?)

Here's a different version that leaves more up to the reader. If anyone has a preference, let me know.

          Inventories of Desire

A young lady sits with her legal pad
at the picnic table, pauses, writes, pauses,
then writes again. Is it a love letter,
a shopping list, a lesson plan, or a poem?

Downward Mobility

For foreign readers, mobile homes are large trailers that are usually put on permanent foundations and serve as houses for families.

     Downward Mobility

Why are so many mobile homes
so sad and stationary,
just marking time and losing ground?
Not so much the ones gathered
in neighborhoods, defiant tornado
targets with small gardens
and backyard pools,
but the solitary ones
abandoned along country
roads, like junked cars
that ran out of gas between here
and there,
old dream cars now
not worth the towing.

Proper Identification

    Proper Identification

From a distance, they look like prisoners
of war or a ragged line of hostages –
hands to head with elbows out, all standing
at stiff attention around a clump of trees.

But then they reveal themselves as birders,
binoculars raised to transfixed eyes
while they strain as I do to see and name
correctly all we can before it flies away..