AGING

STOP THE TRAIN! I want to ask the conductor to renew my ticket! I want to start the trip over.
I need to revisit decades thirty and forty, now that I have the new and improved ME. I’m not ready for the trip to wind down! A round trip ticket, if you please! There’s a place I want to go where I’d bypass my old foe and start anew. There’s a choice or two, or maybe three, that should have gone differently; and I’d like to see how that story would have played. I should have said no when I said yes, and yes when I said no, and I should have spoken up when I let the silence speak instead. My reality was a thin facsimile to what
should have,
could have,
might have been!

Julie Williams 2009

I AM

In transition, I am;
Caught between youth and
age like an autumn leaf
that clings to its branch

while a changing wind
twists it round
and ‘round
and around.
I spent my springtime
unfurling,
The summer expanding,
and now that summer’s nearly spent,
alas, I thirst for more.
I’m not ready for the fall at all.
I’d rather postpone it,
oppose it---the drying, curling,
glorious coloring into autumn
that precedes the chilling
slumber of winter’s call.
I only know before ---
Not what after will become.

Julie Williams July 2009

Watch Me!

I stand by the child who screams in the night, when no one comes to comfort her.
I watch the man as he beats his wife, smiling as he does so.
I'm with the man as he loses his job and the woman who loses her home.
I go to war with the solider and visit his family daily.
I live in dark, dirty places: the slums, alley ways, and back streets.
I love ugliness. I thrive on violence. Depression feeds me.
I crush hope, faith and light. I am all powerful. I am fear.
@ Cheryl Coons June 2009

Love’s Kindling

For the man I cherish and love

Take my hand and dance with me,
Time flies by, with little time for “we”.
Quietly sit beside me and enjoy
Making memories as ‘he’ and ‘she.’

The night is still, filled with our thoughts
And our dreams as we climb this hill.
Start the fire with twigs of caring,
Forget the troubles we may be sharing.

Feel the warmth of our newfound love,
See the stars as they shimmer above.
Notice the glow the kindness brings,
And when we’re together, how the world sings.

Come dance with me, be with me tonight,
Knowing you are my heart’s sheer delight.
Through calming winds or the harsh weather,
Stay with me, promise to leave never.

When we enter that special place
That’s just you and me in our private space,
It lights the fire of our inner soul,
A relationship that keeps us whole.

Noticing the beauty around us,
With the campfire an added plus,
Living in peace, a chance to discover.
Just two souls dancing together.


Linda S Cone

November 19, 2008

The Last Dance

As the winter slowly slides into spring, Jack Frost comes slipping into town for one last fling. He tiptoes almost shyly through the crocus dusting their tiny heads with just a little powdery snow as the wind starts softly to blow. He dips his head and offers his hand to Mother Nature for one last dance before he departs to wait for another winter to come.

They start slowly with a grand stately step, back and forth they dance as the wind and snow join in the prance. Past your windows they go. Jack leaves his last love note on the glass, as they go hurrying past. Faster and faster they whirl as the wind picks up and the snow starts to twirl. Back and forth the dancers go as the trees start to sway and keep time with the beat. Uphill and down, go forth and retreat. The snow whirls about in a frenzied step as if it too can hear the music of the dance.

At last, at last, Jack begins to tire, the wind starts to calm, and the snow starts to settle. He bows to his partner and kisses her hand. Off to his bed he goes in his snowy land, to dream of the day when the snow starts to fall, the wind starts to hum and he offers his hand for more dances to come.

@ Cheryl Coons Spring 2009

Ranch Hands

It’s an overwhelming air of loneliness
That encompasses those of us who
Stop to look toward the horizon
At dusk, thinking “This isn’t me…”
Hurrying to finish the fencing
In the harried half-light
Of evening. That must be

Someone else with a pail of staples
Gripped tightly in her hand
Trudging along the line fence
Of the pasture, thinking,
“This can’t be me…” solely responsible
For revamping this ramshackle piece
Of boundary fenceline. At the deepest
Moment of the day, wishing

That I were someplace else, wishing
I were anywhere else; but I’m a rancher
Looking out at herself from afar,
Hopping into the old ranch pickup,
Starting it up and climbing the steep hill
Listening to the tires grabbing
For real estate, the engine laboring

Disrupting the endless silence
Which seems ominously empty
And strange; then suddenly thinking
With a new wave of aloneness
“This really shouldn’t be me…” sitting in this
Pickup feeling as if I were miles from civilization,
In the center of God’s Country. This must be

Someone else driving around in these hills
Surrounded by miles of grassy knolls
With only wildlife to share the deepening
Dusk, searching to find the trail while
Steering herself home and trying
Not to fret

In the last moments of nightfall
As the red lights on the tower wink
Knowingly, farmsteads light up in the
Valley and the sky fills with stars.
Linda S Cone 4–29-2009