Two poems

My children
Aliens
Who came
So wanted
Welcomed
Bidden
Still foreigners
We do not speak
A common tonge
So I must listen
For vibrations
To ascertain
What it is
They need.
Feeling along
For evidence
Or cues
Never knowing
If I extend the peace
Or declare
WAR
When all I wanted
Was to give them
A home
And set them
Free.




The Math of Keeping House
8 rooms
2 baths
Basement and garage
Many many closets
Junk drawers
Baskets like eddys
Of stuff.
Each week these must be
Sorted, put back
Together.
How much life
Times to hold it
Together
To clean, organize, infuse
With the Energy of
Home
But I am just passing through
The hours—
This week 60 hours at work
An hour and a half to prepare
Serve
Eat
Clean
The Meals
2 Hours in procurement
The hours soon in
Negative balance
But days MUST balance
You cannot run in the red
Without bartering your future
And so something
Must be subtracted
The numbers, like a universe
Eventually collapsing upon itself
In a zero sum game.
The numbers
3 hours to clean out a closet
Detail a car
Reorganize 2 kitchen cabinets
Write a poem
Take a nap
Read a book
Go to a languid lunch with a friend
You can create a world in 3
Short
Hours.
But oh to wrest those
3
Short
Hours
From the tangle of the routine
To have and to hold
Precious fleeting and
Never to come again.
The math of life.