As I walk down the street
I ask myself...
How did it all start???
How did life start???
How did the world all start???
What happened???
I guess I will never know...
Daniel Gallagher
02-10-80/2
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
She’s been the one all these years— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
how fragile hang the leaves of our futures
time and events swirl… national, personal… age advances
nothing remains the same.
“Rose”, I could say, my hand on her’s
with the endless calendar pages
and conjunctions whispering around us
and those small wrinkles advancing on our investments.
And it would be but a gesture against life’s capriciousness
and its tendency to change just when it feels good.
So I’ve lived enough to see this life’s form… what I’ve done
who I am… what’s caught me, what I’ve escaped
I’ve formed enough to recognize she’ll always be the one
just as Danny will always be my son.
02-18-80
With what patience and need— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
Rose and I have loved each other these years.
All our twenties given…
our small wrinkles betray our investments
and our memories that lie sleeping behind our eyes
with all the distant wisdom
of a thousand photograph album pages.
Winter morning with she and my son sleeping around me
keeping me warm and secure
against the gray morning’s light.
We’ve all come so far together
to be here in this quiet hour.
Rose’s belly full now with her new child’s warmth
warms the bedroom’s dusk.
And Danny asleep beneath the window’s light
half grown
and I scribbling notes before they wake
beneath the lamp’s circle of light.
Today we’re still together after ten years
so much of my life’s time lays sleeping here.
Texas, separations, marriage, Danny’s birth
careers and college
it all lays sleeping here under my pen.
Rose, … who more than Rose is love to me?
She’s wife, lover, sister, mother
until I don’t know what she is to me.
gallagher
18 Feb 80