WILD ROSES, ELSBERRY CEMETERY

Your petals drop in excess onto stone.

Each spring this royal crimson down the rows,

Through rain or sun toward elemental bone.

This morning in the air a fuss of crows

Takes umbrage at the way you let all go;

Rebukes as well the one who comes and mows,

Caring no less for crows than petals' show.

THE YEAR WE RANG IN

Maybe five years a stay-at-home by then,

a young woman with enough pills

for two in the pocket, a sadness

that could check the sea.

Nana wants to watch Lawrence Welk,

the usual for her Saturday night, why not,

so it's New Years?

There will be others.

But tonight, it is just the two of us,

flesh and blood, cold comfort shared,

something we do and remembered

long after she is gone.

It was she who said, get a pan and a spoon,

when the ball descended in New York.

She, who opened the front door to the coal sky,

banging the spuds pan through the burly cold.

And then I, banging and banging and banging,

forgetting how inextricably bound

by the "Irish mood" we were,

murdering our cold drum.