The Old Woman
The old woman walks the road by day,
picking up cans to earn her pay.
She sits on the porch and watches the cars,
waiting till night to wish by the stars.
She waits while the seconds tick off the clock,
just some touched dame at the end of the block.
The Eyes of the Sparrow
Sitting erect on his wooden perch
wind blowing the tattered torn feathers,
The gaze which pierces your soul
crying out from forgotten yesterdays
his call like the laughter of an old man.
The Button
A marron button
on a jacket no one wears
archaic token.
Aunt Agnes
I remember a summer in my youth,
when my aging aunt came to stay.
Her shining hair pulled tightly in a bun,
a pink flannel robe with butterflies on the pockets.
Aunt Agness would sit on the porch and read her favorite letters
sharing stories from long, long ago.
One night we were alone,
She pulled me closely to her chest
calling me by a name I did not know.
Her hands were soft and smelled of fresh flowers.
She squeezed my small hand in hers
as she pretended I was someone else.
Later from my bedroom window
I watched my dad drive her away.
Mom said she was taking a trip
But deep down I knew
They just didn’t understand.
The Mirror
Grandaddy showed me a house one day
it had been his childhood home
Stiil and vacant
A broken piece of mirror lay on the floor
I picked it up and held the discarded relic
Paint flakes peeling from its ancient frame
The glass tinted from time
Cracks spread like cobwebs
As I stared into the silent glass
I saw a faint image of another time
A little boy looking much like me
Tying for the first time a brand new yellow tie
Captured in this mirror
held tightly in my hands.
The Soldier
Little Willy is a soldier by day
Watching secretly through the curtain
As grandmother sits at her rickety machine.
Tapping messages of enemy formations,
Her soft gaze to the window,
Swiftly moving out of sight
.
Charging the pasture, he scatters the cows
Grazing in knee high weeds.
Camouflaged behind the shrubs
He stays hidden from a patrol pulling in the drive
Taking notes of the officer as he steps from a car.
He surveys the room spotting the newspaper
Notes written by hand, troop formations no doubt
He swiftly stows them in his pack,
Moving unnoticed through the room
Once again, a hero to his men.
Little Willy who has been wounded so many times
Fights on …
Lieutenant Willy, the bravest man in the regiment
Possibly, the world.
Russell's Ramblings 