Bill Grace Poems

It is those struggles I find so interesting
The house, the neighbors, the wife, the child - not even children
Even the dog presents a challenge
The effort to love that fails
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Across our chasms we met
His arms covered with tattoos
My arms Anglo white - needle untouched,
As we warmed he told of early years in an institution
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One reason I write is it carries me away
Where so much of life is sullen
Perhaps these words will stay
Not so much a matter of memorial as remembrance
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May your gun be always in its holster
May your hands be steady in the press
May the wind be always to your back and
May you be in heaven an hour
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Before you marry know the parents well
So much will be revealed I cannot tell
For casual loves this insight in not dear -
Could well be ignored
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Today I can not kill a man or woman
900 on a boat with children can be barely grasped
Six million require much stronger medications
Than I have prescribed.
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If truth is our being watched from heaven
It must produce a little merriment there
To see this old academic who could never get enough
Shouting with all the enthusiasm his years can muster:
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Aunt Eleanor was better than most of the analysts on the street
Three days before the bottom fell out of the REITs
She proved she was no man's Market fool.
Though long ago in so many ways
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The sweet smell of sage in crisp air made me enter in,
Such a small room of tasaruff, wool cloaks and red fez next to nea and chanter,
Little of rank or status separated the order - only age and respect gilded this room
A portal to the hereafter with tea on their lips
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