BETSY

Why now

Why, after forty years

Do I think of you?

We are ten years old, eating

Cake and ice cream in your backyard

So beautifully decorated

All of your classmates are here celebrating

The birthday of a lifetime

But everyone is oddly quiet

No

Subdued

You are very pretty

Yellow curly hair frames your round, pale face

White lace-trimmed anklets rest

Atop glassy Mary Janes

Your crisp organdy party dress

Fairly floats above a stiffly starched slip

You are a bride, awaiting her Beloved

And I wish, for a brief moment, I were you

I always envied you

You seemed to have everything

You had everything

Except a future

ENTOMBMENT

Such an unkind fate

To become but a reminiscence

Tucked away

In a secret place,

Brought to mind

With a smile, fondly

Recalled on anniversaries

A sweet souvenir

Carefully preserved

In a cobwebby attic trunk

Forever, entombed

In a mind cluttered

With "might-have-been"

PASSAGE

Among the fallen

Lay the ancient ones,

Beautiful in death

As they were in life

Petrified, they remain still

Where once they stood tall

Nodding their delight

In the evening breeze

And yet, as if in defiance,

They shine in splendor,

Vivid and brilliant, gilded

In morning sunlight

Might it be, that we, too,

Are so transformed

On our passage

From life into death...