To My Ian I take down April’s memories, Of six and twenty years ago, When heavy clouds hung dark and full, And rain began to flow. I felt a weight depart from me, A sudden, hollow fear "Is he alive?" I screamed, afraid, That you were no longer near. For silence filled the heavy room, As shadows of a loss once felt Stirred within the sudden gloom, And all my courage dealt. But you were being warmed and held, While your father, in the grace Of those years when love was still ou

Ted, Waiting For His Boy, A Prose Beginning and Concluding in Couplets, August 1, 2025 Such is the pain that mothers must bear, such as the anguish woven into the air. He is Ted, the Boston, the low-slung loyal heart, who does not understand the calendar or the sudden void. He only knows his boy, now a grown man, is missing from the sound of the front door. He waits. His eyes are now clouded, his steps are slow and stumbling. He now bumps the chair leg; his gait is shaky.