Bob Bowers

She asks me, in The Swan,
Whether I have figured out what beauty is for
Whether I have changed my life,
This Mary Oliver,
...

As I look through the frosted panes
Of my study,
Out at the leaves,
Now more brown than gold,
...

In a fair, still spot
Beneath our apple orchard tree,
For it was but one,
The rest long gone to yards
...

It is spring.
Daffodils erupt from snow-clouded earth,
Their yellow brightness brighter
Than the warming orb of sun
...

It was his eyes
That told me of death.
Though I did not know it
At the time
...

How sweet it is
Listening to my wife
Talking on the phone with
Our daughter
...

I look out the windows of this
Victorian victory of a house,
A battle won over builder,
Plumber, seabed soil, saltwater well.
...

Submarines sank
before his eyes
Disappeared into
murky depths
...

John reached out with hands
No longer hot with youth,
Touched the ones who had no heat at all,
Touched those youths now buried there
...

They must seek you out
Here among these cobblestones and stairs
Along these ancient streets
Wandering down to grey piers
...

Gold water slides
Beneath the even strokes
Of life pulling me along.
...

Under cover of night
Like Special Forces Rangers
Long before their berets were king,
We crept across Schermer’s cornfield,
...

On January 26,1832, James Morton
Married his second wife
Mary Parkinson
In Marion County, Illinois
...

Her hand reaches in,
Slowly,
And touches love,
Lying there
...

The soft breath of her voice
Caressed his cheek,
Like dew from a rose
In morning's first light.
...

I hear your lilting laughter
In summer’s fading light,
Like morning glories after
Sun’s sparkle lifts in flight
...

I pull myself up,
Slide along the pew,
My trousers smooth
Shining with wear and youth’s age.
...

He sat there on his stool,
Next to me,
A giant of a man
Shrunk 'round his beer.
...

It was not always like this
The soft creak of my caned back rocker
As I shift my weight,
Unburden myself
...

I look across our garden,
Weed-thick,
Scraggly,
Dried out.
...