Musings and Misgivings
In the end we are water,
moving with air,
carving our bodies into earth
Remember me,
we say,
but there is no way
to forget the shape of a river
Do you think of me when
you build dams
and wipe your hands
of the soil that made you?
I will think of you
someday,
away from false worlds
where we work like ants
under magnifying glasses
Someday,
the sun’s rays
won’t burn us,
but warm us from the porch
as we watch the horizon melt
behind the hills
11/3/22
The impetuous screeching of cicadas,
suffocating Ohio summers with
their cries for attention
every seventeen years
like teenage hyenas at Head Row
desperately seeking prey
in the shadows
of disheveled baseball diamonds,
dust-ridden and ravenous
We like to believe
we can timestamp
high noon,
radiant and thick
with promise
But we are all bugs
buzzing with life
only to wane at first frost,
leaving crumpled carcasses
and rough drafts
rather than legacies
7-20-20
Tired
the kind of tired
where even your ribs ache
from holding it in
I breeze through a cemetery
where dandelions push
their blonde heads
toward the sun
to remind us
that life goes on
Even though I am not ready to move on
I have already watched you fade
into the old you and grieved
at the foot of a stranger’s plot
I am tired of losing you
So I leave you here, where I can visit
and remember the times when your eyes
kept me in focus
and forget the times when
they pushed me
into the periphery
5-10-20
Gretchen Pleuss 