Wordtreasure

Murph, the Butcher

One of the Ms at the M&M Market
on Huntington Drive
in the early 1950s
was Murph, the butcher.
Dad was a meat and potatoes kind of guy,
and Mother was an excellent cook
of beef, pork and lamb.
It helps to have
the best cuts of meat
and Mother was good
at getting that
by flirting with Murph
on her trips to the M&M.
I saw her in action
many times, and Murph,
bless his heart,
knew he was being played
by a master manipulator.
Mother would give me a wink
as if to say, See how it’s done?
The result was always the same,
and Dad never complained
of servings at suppertime.

Contact info: davebaldwin37@gmail.com

Dorm Room Bull Session

Romans 6:1-11

“Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more,”
said Paul to his roommate, the sophomore philosophy major
who offered this devil’s-advocate wager.
“I propose to you: the more we sin, the more

God’s grace shall abound. Thus, we should sin
with gladness so grace abounds all the more.
By sinning more, we are doing God a favor
since he loves granting grace to those who sin.”

Paul frowned and countered the jest with commonsense.
“Once we die to sin, why would we stay
in that condition? Why would the emancipated slave
stay with an abusive master? Does that make sense?

If you were released from prison, would you go back
to your cell or would you choose to live free?
The question answers itself. If you won the lottery,
would you continue to live in an old shack?”

Paul’s interlocutor loved to bedevil and astound,
especially in a deep discussion of sin and grace.
He said, “I just like to see you red in the face.”
Paul was laughing as they wandered out for a round.

Hap

A lost transcript was the beginning
of a life-altering event when I hoped to go
to the University of Oregon.
I enrolled instead at a smaller school in Idaho.
Little did I know this course correction
would mean so much.

I took a summer job at Sun Valley.
As a lowly kitchen worker,
I was quite sure my floating world
would persist, but then, there she was,
traveling through as a guest.
Sixty-three years have passed
since we met at the Lodge.

Who knows which moment is meant to last?
Who knows! From the vantage point of age,
I could be looking back with ruefulness
at a listless river in a barren landscape
or a hellscape of conflict
or a life of emptiness like the wave-polished shell
abandoned by the creature who used to dwell—
or enjoy a different contentment with someone else.

Devil-may-care at the time of first action,
my initial moves belong
to a thousand-piece puzzle near completion.
We make informed decisions, but life is long.
For happiness, there is no map,
and often it is simply the result of hap.

Thomas the Apostle

John 20:19-31

Faith is trust in the things you cannot see.
Love is service to the least who are plain to see.

Faith without love is life without compassion.
Love without faith is life without a mission.

You honor the Lord by giving your best to others.
Do all you can to help your sisters and brothers.

Walk by confident faith, not by sight.
Trust the Lord to bring you into the light.

Faith and love inspire both head and heart.
This is how the saints are set apart.

NOTE: These are lyrics for an anthem.

Home After a Glum Day

Home after a glum day.
Yellow crocuses are breaking ground.

Jumping up and down
and spinning around,
my dog likes me
more than I like myself.

In my world,
even the shadow has a shadow.
I look for a place
to lie down
between words in a sentence.

The world of work
is a slow winding river
on a featureless plain.
I remember nothing;
nothing remembers me.

Shadows lengthen,
evening comes.
The busy world is hushed,
the fever of the day is over
and my work is done.

Grant me a safe lodging,
a holy rest,
and peace at the last.

[haiku]

end of an affair
sprinklers go off on schedule
in the hard rain

Autism Turns 21

It is hard for us to guess what’s on your mind.
We question you until you answer yes.
Outside of family, the world is not so kind.

Sometimes it’s twenty questions until we find
what triggers you. We understand your stress,
but the family needs to know your state of mind.

You are now of legal age and fully grown
standing six foot one and big as a house.
We give you hugs. The world is not so kind.

We know your music playlist calms you down
and steadies your nerves in solitude. Distress
starts up when conversation prods your mind.

Cold, indifferent people are not inclined
to help: it’s not my problem; it’s not my mess.
Outside of family, the world can be unkind.

For you, my grandson, if the future is predefined
by the past, please know you’ll always have our blessing.
The family will embrace whatever is on your mind.
Outside of us, the world is not so kind.

NOTE: This poem is about my Grandson Casey Baldwin.

A Moment of Kindness

It was a long time ago,
when I was young and in my prime.
I was entering the city for Passover. Lo and behold,

prisoners were leaving the city at the same time
for their executions. One was Jesus.
He was weak from scourging as he struggled to climb

to the place Golgotha while carrying the cross.
Seeing that I was a Jew,
a Roman soldier tapped me aside the face

with the flat of his sword, and said, “You.”
Pressed into lethal service for the Roman
state, I knew what I had to do.

“Brother, let me lift your burden,”
I said, as I hoisted the wood shoulder high.
Together, we walked the hill

to his certain death. I wonder why
happenstance put me in that time and space.
Why me? Of all the events under the sky,

why I was plucked to show some grace?
I was in the right place at the right time.
A moment of kindness can last a lifetime.

Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco

We had a large brown radio
in the living room
when we lived on Brighton Street
in Burbank.
Mother and Dad listened
to their shows on Sunday afternoon
while I played with a toy
or worked a puzzle book
on the living room rug.

They laughed at the jokes
on the Jack Benny show
sponsored by Lucky Strike,
and because of their laughter,
I started to pay attention.

I kept hearing the letters
LS/MFT, and I asked Dad
what that meant.
Both Mother and Dad answered together
with a hearty laugh,
“Lord, save me from Truman.”

Cloud Formations

On simmering summer afternoons,
Mother and I stretched out
on the backyard grass
at our tiny wartime tract house
on Brighton Street
close to the Lockheed plant
and we tried to identify objects
in the clouds.
Those were the years
before smog commandeered the skies
over the L.A. basin.
Cumulus clouds were commonplace.

Mother was good at this.
She would spot some formation
in the clouds,
point it out to me,
and then tell a story.
I marveled at the stories,
but most of the time
I could not see what she saw
and that was a common theme
of our sixty-two years together:
we often did not agree
on what we were looking at,
but she could tell a story
like no one else.

Looking to the West

for Matthew and Ginger

We are looking to the west—to the old Smith Tower
on the left, to tinted office towers on the right,
to the piers and giant cranes of the Port of Seattle,

to whitecaps on Elliott Bay, to seagulls in flight,
to the Puget Sound, and to the Olympic Mountains range.
Breezes are light; the afternoon sun is bright.

We gather on the courthouse roof to turn the page
on the past. A judge with the matinee-idol look
begins to speak. We are present to witness the change.

Decision point: there is no turning back.
Eyes are brimming wet, but voices are strong.
In this moment, old sorrows fade to black.

Where do we go from here? As the old song
explains, We may lose and we may win,
though we will never be here again. We are looking

to the west as the sun declines to the haze horizon.
Where do we go from here? Will all of us hold,
or will our gathering scatter as we grow old?

Those People

The Paleo-Indians, the first Americans,
are checking out the neighborhood.
Woe to mammoths and mastodons.

Life is good in 1491.
Conquistadors from faraway Iberia
claim land for the king of Spain.

Driven away by the Church of England,
Pilgrims, Puritans and Roman Catholics
are free to worship on the eastern shore.

French explorers are moving in
to the river valleys of a vast continent,
all the way north to Labrador.

The Delaware people are pushed aside
as the Dutch build New Amsterdam.
The merchant class is riding high.

Germans create farms and towns,
but refuse to learn the English language.
Ben Franklin is very upset!

Scots-Irish come to America,
gambling on a promise of opportunity.
They travel west to the hills of Appalachia.

The potato famine is forcing the poor
of Ireland to emigrate to the new world.
The Irish are judged as less than human.

Much the same is said of the Italians
who come to America and take employment
that proper Americans will not accept.

Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Life was better before they came.

From the very beginning of colonial life,
captive slaves from out of Africa
power the economy for southern whites
and struggle for equity in the north.
Free at last! They are still despised.

Native Americans are dispossessed,
deprived of their game and forced to move
to plots of land drawn up by whites.
Broken treaties! A trail of tears!
Though first, they are treated as the last.

Seniority on the land matters only
for those Americans with roots in Europe.
To this day, Indians and blacks
are still regarded as those people.

Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Life was better before they came.

Do you really believe that?
Have you forgotten how your own
ancestors were advised to show respect
to those who settled earlier in America?
Remember, there was a time when
your people endured hostility and hate.
Your people were those people.

It is a declaration and a promise:
“All men are created equal.”
Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Welcome: E pluribus unum.
Welcome: out of many, one.

[tanka]

like a stuttering newsreel
from the 40s,
the same events and the same emotions
of joy and disappointment
roll across my mind