Departures
I brought a big sack of laundry
to the laundromat to wash
in fact I brought two
on a cold winter slush ground day
and I was the only one in there
reading my book of a Slovene poet
when two other guys showed up
one with his smart phone entertainment
the other with a nifty jazz player hat
me with my book on a bench
two dryers tumbling
one with a jumbled sound
which turned out to have a
rhythm all its own when it
finally stopped, clothes almost dry
(they are never completely dry)
the fellow with the jazzy hat said
without turning around, "Just when
I was getting used to the rhythm of
that sound" and I replied, “And isn’t it
Just like rhythm, once it’s noticed
It Happens
Getting older —
The dark woods
Look darker
Authority
Some mouse has woven
a paper nest in my stored
away mud boots all winter
It’s now sloppy spring
and I’m needing
my boots
who am
I to wreck
a warm home?
Flying
I tell him I have never flown in a plane
He looks at me quietly for a moment
Then repeats what he can’t believe he has heard —
You have never flown in a plane. . .
Others have reacted the same way over the years
I look at their expressions, their whole faces
Faces that are full of disbelief and somehow larger
So that I feel like I am flying over mountains
Notes
Every night, late,
I have written a note I leave
for the woman I love
over 40 years this way
Somewhere there is a drawer
or drawers of these notes
she saved everything
which tells you everything
If one day you come upon these notes
remember when I tell you
we were in love
as you feel only the paper
___________________________
Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake
Longhouse 2018
