HEAVEN on EARTH

What is heaven?

Here on earth

heaven is a good breakfast

where the taste lingers

on your tongue

and sates your appetite,

Heaven is in a glass

of cold water,

in a sunset,

in a good roll in bed,

in a look between

a man and a woman,

in a good book,

in walking free

through fields of wheat,

in a work of art

that reaches inside you;

Heaven is in a moment.

MY RESERVOIR, a poem

My reservoir of words

of English with smatterings

of French, German, Italian,

and Spanish with bits

of Farsi and Arabic

available at my call

throughout my life

were collected from parents

from school, from books, from films

from conversations, from theater

from dictionaries and thesauruses

          The right word, the right phrase

          flowed at will

          into my novels, poems, articles

and conversations

then old age struck

The wanted words

slow in coming

or even blocked

by feeble recall

My reservoir remains full

but difficult to access

INFATUATION, a poem

         The rivulet flowed

          from within them

          widening into a brook

          tumbling comfortably

          into a stream swelling

          with a growing power

          into a river roaring

          violently to the sea

          and it was over