the tiger lily
striped like the cat
sprouts from a jungle of grass

be who you are
the butterfly
alights on the stem

oil burns
the wounds
of the pock-marked earth

Your Golden Day

Published Friday, May 1, 1931 in the Kokomo Tribune. My grandpa, Dr. Leslie E. Gates wrote this poem in honor of his parents' golden anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. L. R. Gates:

Fifty years of married life
Fifty years as husband and wife
Quite a while to live together
But you have done it. The feather
You have not thrown up and quit
As many have done. Your bit
You've done through life's long span
and what else is there, a fellow can?
Fifty years since you started out
to fight life's battles and rout
Old man poverty who hovered near
And tried to give you the fear
You'd never make it. But now,
As you sit at home, somehow
Or other it seems a dream
As you look back, but a stream
Of pictures quickly flow
Which set your heartstrings all aglow
As you vision the pathways you have trod
And been spared this long by the grace of God
What is the heritage you've sought to gain
Riches-contentment-friends-name?
Well, dad, and mother, from afar
I'll say I know you as you are.
Riches -- in money -- you haven't gained
but your names are surely widely famed.
Beside your fires to get warm
You've sheltered hundreds from the storm
As the "boys" would drop in nearly froze
To thaw the icicles from their nose;
Help themselves to "mother's" table,
Carrying the coal when she wasn't able.
Even in the depths of night
From trains rushing in their flight
"Hi, ye Mother" -- Hi, ye Dad."
The greatest heritage one ever had.
Friends - yes thousands of them -
Of traveling you've never done a lot
For 35 years, there's been a spot
On the map called Old Vermont
Which has given you what thousands want --
Friends. Yes, they've come and gone
While you alone have carried on
And been a landmark in that place
that years, I'm sure, will not erase
And now today -- your Golden Day
A word that many cannot say
Is here. They won't forget --
The "boys" will remember you even yet.
You've had your sorrows and your cares.
God knows. Who dares
To institute a search
In order to your name besmirch
Should put himself to shame
For you have squarely played the game!
You've reached your three score years and ten.
How many are left? Well -- until then
We'll just forget and do our best
To crowd much happiness in the rest.
You've done your share, so be content
To say these words "Our life's well spent."
Your seven children - some far away -
Are all "with" you on your Golden Day.
Then there's your fourteen grand you know
How many on their Golden Day can show
The same? Mother, Dad, what else is there to be had?
Rich? Yes! Money isn't all.
Memories - pictures on the wall
Mean more to you than golden cash
Which is so easily reduced to ash.
Fifty are gone--so come what may
This one thing always you can say:
"Mother-we have played the game
The world we can face without a shame."

a poem that I forgot I wrote, about Ron

I would love you even if you smelled bad
I would love you even if you had toilet paper hanging from your shoe
I would love you even if you were three foot high or nine foot high or wore a size 20 shoe or a size 2
I would love you even if you had false teeth, an artificial hip and other prosthetic parts

You are sexy when you are tired
You are sexy when you are asleep
You are sexy when you eat too much
You are sexy when you take up the whole bed or steal all the covers
Because sex oozes out of your very pores

I like the way you look in your blue jeans
I like the way you look in your black shirts
I like the way you trace your family tree even though nobody helps you
I like your eyes and your nose and your mouth and other stuff

I like that you read all those books and watch all the History Channel shows
I like that you drive a pick-up truck, even though you need a new one
Maybe we should cancel all vacations and buy a new truck
I think so

binocular-clad birdwatchers
walk a moss-covered trail
under overcast skies