Alice and Other Poems

By Phil Flott

Alice

Didn’t you know
that I am eternally grateful to you
for being my children’s aunt.

You inherited the muscles
of Uncle Ben
and smiles from Theta Lil.

I have been back in Omaha
only two years,
was just about to re-contact you.

You dared,
To fight the stroke,
but obeyed the adage

among the old:
a broken leg
begins the end.

You would not absorb the medicine
nor the thrums of pain
the meds tried to alleviate.

How beautiful that you checked out
surrounded by the kisses of your children.

I’m sure you realize
These cousins, too, will miss you.

Sleep in the peace
that our wonderful Lord

has been trying to give you
all your life.

Bird at the Peak

The bird, between a pigeon and a sparrow’s size,
roosts on the roof
at a 90 degree angle.
As I rise
he spreads his wings
in an unfurled ballerina move,
touches the roof, his right wing down
and his left skyward.
As I arise 
He returns to his perpendicularity.
I abandon him,
walk on my interior threshold.

Canadian Geese

honk the hulk of their head-stretched bodies
over the half-built walls
of this apartment building
slung low
in Salt Creek Valley,
small springs
sprinkling under glacial-till soil,
causing us to bog down often while walking.

These human-habituated geese
remember they lived here at Holmes Park Lake
as much as in the alfalfa fields to the left,
and loudly squawk at us.

No concern of theirs
that we have more work to do
on our building project.
Our yards of foundation forms are
a navigation line to them.
They welcome us in their world
of insistent sounds
only reluctantly.

Deer

The day the doe darted in front of me
on Highway 73-75
past Plattsmouth,
out of the green ravine, west to east,
and my chrome bumper
darn near grazed it
and my fright hadn’t clicked in yet,
just the beginning of an open mouth
of wonder at the beast’s bounding beauty—

That’s the way it was when I met you,
your eyes all stars on the dance floor,
your perfect body
mirroring my every move,
your spirit hilarious as mine,
the fulness of you, at last, the life.

Phil Flott is a retired priest and so enjoys the ability to devote time to poetry.