Stephen Joseph 

Clouds kept the sun from lighting up my

        grandmother's white hair
    as she sat in front of the streaky window.
    She talked about pills, her first house,
        and her achy knee,
    applesauce, sleeplessness,
        and my mother.
    Time, silent and sulky, sat in a stained green armchair
    but then, suddenly, stood up and walked out,
        carrying my head with him.
    Now, in room 17 of the Bracebridge Retirement Home,
    God is telling God what it is like to grow old
        as a human being.

Stephen Joseph

Two Children

Two children sit on the ends of an oak log in a yard,
backs to each other.
It is a horse and they are gleefully riding it
together in opposite directions.
"Where are you going?", I ask.
"North Carolina!", the girl yells.
"McDonalds!", the boy sings.
And form is emptiness and emptiness is form
and all are enlightened and no beings exist
and there is something to achieve and there is nothing I can do
and words reveal and words conceal
and I am everything and I am nothing
and I am the girl and the boy and the log and the
dewy grass beneath us all.

Stephen Joseph