DIRT

(John 8:6-8)

Dig anywhere
and you’ll
always find dirt.

© Andrew Costello

IS THERE

ANYTHING

OR ANYONE ELSE

I'M PASSING BY?

NURSING HOME

First impression: Visitors must sign in.
Second impression: Wheel chairs and people.
Third impression: People watching people.
Fourth impression: Long corridors of tile.
Fifth impression: Nurses walking fast.
Sixth impression: Old people walking slow.
Seventh impression: Walking into your room
Eight impression: Semi-darkness.
Ninth impression: You.
Tenth impression: Wrinkles
Eleventh impression: We begin talking.
Twelfth impression: You offer me an orange.
Thirteenth impression: Announcements over loud loudspeakers
and you don’t hear them.
Fourteenth impression: You’re okay and happy.
Fifteenth impression: People looking into your room as they go by.
Sixteenth impression: A nurse goes by.
Seventeenth impression: I say I have to leave.
Eighteenth impression: A kiss goodbye.
Nineteenth impression: People in wheel chairs watching
as I push the elevator button.
Twentieth impression: Wondering as I drive home if I’ll
ever live to 88?
Twenty first impression: Will I be grateful and as graceful
as you are today or will I be someone
all want to avoid or forget?




© Andrew Costello 2007

POEM: OLD RADIATOR

Angrily hissing,
and hurting,
and letting off steam,
the old radiator
was obviously sad,
hearing them talking about
buying a new electric heater
pretty soon – very soon.

© Andrew Costello 2007

POEM: LONG AGO TODAY

I love only by memory now.
You are gone, dead, buried,
green grass covered.
But buried deep inside of me
are all those moments we died
to be with each other.

And I walked away
from your grave today
filled with tears
and all those memories
buried deep within me.
Thank you my love.

© Andrew Costello 2007

POEM: CANOE CUT

The canoe, like a scissors,
cutting across
the silk fabric of the lake,
soft and silent,
almost evening, sun
setting in the west,
behind the pines,
a red, gold, cloth sky,
and God was a canoe,
a scissors, cutting across
everything: sky, water, me.

© Andrew Costello 2007

POEM: HOLDING ONTO

Subway: spotting
a small girl holding onto a doll,
her mother holding onto her,
the subway holding onto all of us,
and all of us holding onto God,
sometimes spotting the holding.

© Andrew Costello 2007