Apples
One thing
we all have
in common is
we're ripening
for the harvest.
Donald Trump
and Pee-wee Herman,
Bill Gates
and Eliot Spitzer,
Warren Buffett
and Anthony Weiner
are different
in many respects
but like the rest of us,
they, too, are ripening
for the harvest.
They hang with us
from the same branch,
apples, big and small,
ripening in summer,
withering in fall,
waiting for winter
to conduct its harvest.
Some of us hang
from that branch
and wonder
what in the name
of God is next.
Others just hang.
They appear
not to care.
Email to a Son
from college 25 years ago.
Anyone who can climb
from ruffian in a juvenile home
to university graduate to
business owner is remarkable.
One day your sons
will come to understand that.
Your siblings as well.
Couldn’t be prouder of your trek,
a magnificent one, done the hard way,
something I viewed from the valley.
My father had a passbook
with cash for me to go to college.
He always had work, hard work,
highly skilled, with no layoffs.
There’s always a demand for hot wire
electricians willing to climb
tall poles and high towers,
attack voltage in any weather.
Life never steps back, forever upstream,
and then suddenly we're salmon.
A final thrust or two and we die.
Thank God we have souls.
Wildlife in the Garden
Birds and possums,
coons and squirrels
frequent my wife’s garden.
Dawn to dusk I spy on them
from an upstairs window
next to my computer.
They remind me of the city
poor foraging in Dumpsters.
This morning a coon dispatched
a possum that had
frightened away two feral cats
I feed every day at 4 a.m.
When I went out on the deck
and waved my arms to dispatch
the coon, he sat on his rump
and stared at me with a glare
I saw 50 years ago in the eyes
of a girl who became a nun.
She is still a nun today.
She said cut it out back then.
As did the coon today.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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