The Perspective of Time
If I could go back in time
and speak to my teenage self,
I thought last night,
I would say to her
When you are 70,
You will say happiness is
lying half asleep at 5:00 a.m.
listening to soft, gentle
snoring on your left,
listening to a woodthrush in the distant woods
and hearing the early songs of wrens
and cardinals and towhees through four open windows
on your right,
with a yellow cat curled up at your feet.
Helen Etters
3/4/17
Tears in Palm Beach
In West Palm Beach, the morning is warm.
Too warm, some say.
I walk around the lake and fall painfully in love with the Muscovy ducks.
Four Muscovies rest under a bottle brush tree.
In the shallows of the shore, a red-faced Muscovy swims with seven black chicks trimmed in yellow
and one yellow chick trimmed in black.
An egret stands apparently on the water.
But with my cynical nature I suspect there is a rock just under the surface.
Or a stump. A stump would do.
The chicks scamper around their mother on the shore
while someone’s grandchild tosses pinches of white bread into the water.
There are tears. There are tears.
.
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