Saturday night,
a new dance at the Grange.
Always the same music,
always a Square Dance.
Put on fresh clothes,
go look for romance.
Many young women,
older ladies too.
What was a young man,
supposed to now do,
but dance, dance and
dance some more,
until you had danced
a hole in the floor.

A silver mist, dropped to the street,
covering tree branches, smothering the heat.
Fog creeping in, "on little cat feet".
When the Sun rises, it will retreat.

I was up in the hills,
hunting for mushrooms.
It was in the Okanogan,
a brushy, sapling covered space,
when I came upon a small,
deserted place. It was surrounded
by trees, some buildings collapsed,
probably a miner, working his claim.
I thought of the stories, of his success
or a failure to find riches
of gold in his mine.
Perhaps the only gold
were the thoughts in his mind.

"There's someone out there,
they're talking to me."
I say, it's just the news
and you they cannot see.
You're sitting there
on the bed end, it could be,
there is confusion, here now,
distinguishing TV from reality.

"What have you written?"
words sometime I hear.
At times when I write,
words just appear,
at the end of my pen,
touching the notebook paper.
Random thoughts, are in the air,
soon I have new writings,
over here, there and everywhere.
My mind is not, as disciplined now,
as I write words, over again,
with no sense of when or how,
as I write for you, my unknown friend.

Every day is different,
yet they're the same,
when she cannot recall
our oldest neighbors name.

Why does daughter
sound like Otter?
Why does laughter
sound like after?

Short is our life,
just a flickering flame,
a gust of wind;
End of the game.

Love for another,
can be fickle,
can be true.
Depends on devotion,
if you're true
to the love,
you have discovered,
it's not about you.

Where are you Susan Sanborn?
What has happened to you?
We worked at Sears Roebuck,
Mail order back in 1972.