Besides knitting....................................

It was 37 years today
(and no Sgt. Pepper didn't teach the band to play)
but I met Bob...................................


Crystal Clear Stars


Crystal clear stars
Lightning bugs in jars
Hula hoops brand new
And Captain Kangaroo

American Bandstand
Transistor radios
Masses in latin
Shiny black patent leather shoes

Homes with no a/c
Just fans in your face
Hop scotch and Lesley Gore
The Beatles - oh! - to die for!

Thoughts like a river flow
Everything I know
Books I have read
Birthdays in my head

High school and girlfriends
Talking the night away
A litany of loves
Only one saw the light of day

Pique turns and arabesques
Grand plies at the barre
A Radio City Hall Rockette?
Who do you think you are?

Suddenly babies on my doorstep
Matchbox cars and hair barettes
Their life from me
My life is them

Unexpectably it passes
School years, concerts, growing up
It crashes into college
And car keys and size 12 shoes

Empty rooms and empty nests
Can make you sing the blues
This is my life after all,
Essence in multi-colored hues.

In between more babies born,
Yet, the old still died,
Nieces, nephews, barbecues and heroin,
In twenty years one life done in

Daughter, mother, student, aunt
Friend, co-worker, confidant
Dancer, writer, dreamer of dreams
Innkeeper, knitter, pray-er, it seems

For courage, and fortitude
For patience, no strife,
Only goodness and love,
In this my sweetlife

For that's all it's been
Through trials and through sorrow
For fifty some years
There's been a tomorrow

Too many others gone quick to the grave,
Out beyond Jupiter and Mars
Yet God's graces just keep on shining
Like crystal, like crystal clear stars.