Sittin' in a Snow Globe

I was caught looking sad.
I didn't mean for it to happen.

I was in a room with many people.
There were conversations
going on in all directions.

Their words were snow in a globe,
everywhere and nowhere.
I sat very still.

So much had gone
so quickly wrong,
I was thinking about nothing.

That's when the kid came up
and said, You look sad.
The globe shook.

Words had no function.
I smiled as millions of flakes
swirled around us.

Bridge Building

Long before he was able to determine
the distance of grief, or to measure
the weight of well timed words,
my young son came into the kitchen
where I sat on the floor,
head in hands, and he told me,
I'm sorry about your friend, Daddy.
I looked up and thanked him.
We smiled at one another
as the sunlight built a bridge
on the tile between us.

Transition

When he sat down on his skateboard
propped on a curb
near the end of the summer of his 14th year,
the sun had nearly set
behind the rows of suburban homes.

In this golden half-light
his friend Matt passed him
a cool can of beer. 

Looking skyward,
he took a drink, his first,
not realizing that,
though this was a beginning,
it was also an ending.

Last Year's Rock-n-Roll

The left ear is ringing again.
It's not like sleigh bells, the doorbell,
nor a heavy tolling church bell.

It is more like constant high-
pitched feedback, a guitar amp
cranked up and gone wrong.

When I set my beer on the table
by the stage, next to the stacked speakers
at hundreds of shows, over dozens

of years, I failed to consider
this consequence.  If you were put off
by my inattention today,

I apologize.
It's not you, only last year's rock-n-roll
in my head.