SamadhiMuse

     She’s been the one all these years
        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

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         With what patience and need
         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

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                                                to the tune of
                                                Kenny Roger’s
                                                “The gambler”
                  There seems to be a fullness
                    that’s rising up to meet me
                  a flowing field of fondness
                    that seems to know my name.
                  Its Rose and all her babies
                    and love with all its names
                  its Danny with his flaxen hair
                    and its me who loves them all
                  I wake up in the mornings
                    the smiling day to greet me
                  so tangible beyond my touch
                    the truth is plain to be.
                                 gallagher
                                 12 Mar 80

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —