Called

Fair youth’s enthusiasms
Echo distant in this quiet garden
Where I try to envision
Such thoughts as now drive my son
Out into the world,
Away from home.

I would spare him error and injury,
But cannot
Without hiding him away.
I would see through his eyes
That I could better understand,
But who can live another’s life?

That which I know is of my own universe,
And while there is much that is universal to all,
My young man now walks upon his own feet,
Called forth by his own soul,
And by the fatherless world.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Anniversary

What is the secret
Of your long and happy marriage?
They ask.

I stop and reflect for a moment,
Furtively glancing at my watch,
Counting down the minutes
Until I will again meet with her,
My rosy-breasted, eager young mistress.

I am too old for her,
But we both have found a momentary bliss
In the forbidden.

What is your secret?
They ask again.

My mind races to find a suitable reply.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

The Idea

He would win the Nobel Prize

For his contributions to the origin of the universe,

But first,

His wife needs him to fix a leaky faucet.

He has to go to the hardware store.

So frustrating,

So many interruptions,

Right when his calculations begin to coalesce,

When they begin to speak.

But first,

His wife needs him to remove his laundry

From the washer

To make room for her clothing.

Then the cat barfs on the rug in his den,

Which makes him jurisdictionally responsible

For the cleanup.  

Now his coffee is cold,

And his stomach is rumbling because he forgot to eat,

Being seized by an idea,

The idea,

Perhaps the missing piece of the cosmological puzzle.

But first,

His chatty neighbor is ringing the doorbell.

She’s brought a bag of homegrown tomatoes

And quickly engages his wife in inane conversation,

Focused on her observations

Of the meaningless exploits of the neighbors.

She rambles on in exhausting detail.

He retreats to his den,

Having second thoughts about working from home.

Since he does not require a laboratory for his work,

It seemed like a good idea,

At first.

Now, back to his theorem,

The missing piece,

It seemed like such an obvious idea,

Once it broke through the maze of spurious speculations.

O yes, the missing piece,

The solution. 

 

“Oh God,” he cries out,

Suddenly realizing he forgot to write it down.

His deep despair suddenly startled

By the frantic ringing of the landline.

His wife will not answer the phone.

She never answers the phone,

Even though it’s usually someone for her.

She’s busy playing the piano,

Reproducing classical pieces in fits and starts,

Repeating difficult passages over and over.

He answers the phone.

The sunlight begins to dim.

His intellectual energy begins to wane.

Perhaps it would be best to close his notebooks,

Wait until tomorrow and get an early start.

With a good night’s sleep

Perhaps the idea will once again reveal itself.

And besides,

It’s nearly time to walk the dog.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Our Stories ~ They Will Not Burn

We lost everything in the fire,

Every thing,

All our mementoes,

Our objects,

Each one containing a memory.

So now,

In a dingy room in a dingy motel,

We put the pieces of our lives back together.

We don’t need objects to prompt our memories.

All our memories are ready to be awakened.

And so,

We sit in the dark,

Telling stories,

So many stories.

We could spend the rest of our lives

Telling our stories.

We've already begun.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

At Play

You call it freedom,
Those afternoons on your dappled horse,
Kicking up dust sparkling in wet ocean air,
Cantering round and round solitary paths
Worn around your father’s estate
Where an old Mexican woman with scars on her knees
Scrubs heel marks off the Spanish tile.

Your orange and white tomcat snags a butterfly,
Yanks off a fluorescent wing
With his needle-nose teeth.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved