End of (My) Days

21 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by michael schinker in Life and death, poem, winter

During the winter months,
the afternoon daylight hours
are just never long enough.
When I watch the sun slip down
behind the neighborhood rooftops
I sometimes feel a bit somber.

The onset of dusk shows my eyes
what the clock says to my mind ––
time is running through my fingers
like sand through the popular
daytime TV soap opera hourglass.
And “so are the days of our lives.”

Old age has a subtle way of steadily
creeping up on me, like nightfall.
Streaks of cirrus clouds become a
canvas of bright orange and purple
watercolors running together in the
western sky, gradually fading into
ghostly shadows of gray. Finally,
a smothering blanket of darkness
unfolds from the east, dousing
the last hint of daylight.

I think it may be God’s way of daily
reminding me that sooner or later,
the final curtain of my life will
eventually drop at the end of
the last act. I can only hope for
at least a few moments of applause
and a somewhat favorable review
of my performance.

October’s End

31 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by michael schinker in All Hallow's Eve, poem

≈ 3 Comments

Our neighbor’s apple orchard looks sadly bare,
the harvest’s bounty now pressed into cider and jam.
In the fields, pumpkins and gourds have succeeded
summer’s bumper crop of watermelons,
long gone off to Fourth of July picnics and
family reunions.

moon2_0

By sunset our last pile of leaves had been raked,
left glowing orange in a lazy bonfire, its wispy
shaft of smoke curling upward in the chilly twilight.
Autumn’s lackluster constellations can’t compete
with this evening’s gibbous moon, rising golden
just over the eastern horizon, silhouetting
a lonely grove of bare-boned maple trees.

This year’s festive All Hallows’ Eve begins
to wane into sleepy solemnity as packs of
costumed children retreat indoors to inspect
their cache of candies while jack-o-lantern faces
gradually go dark. Excited laughter dissipates,
leaving the night to echo only the rhythmic
chirping of crickets and an occasional hoot
from a hidden barn owl. My midnight hike
through crumpled beds of zinnias and
marigolds withered dry by frost gradually
turns melancholic.

Such a metaphor, these changing seasons,
to the passage of time and life.
Almost instinctively drawn to muse upon
a sad stanza or two penned by Shelley,
I wonder how a poet so enchanted with
beauty and romance could just as well
be obsessed with graveyards and doom.
Can love and loss be hopelessly connected?

And so I say Good Night, and Farewell
again to yet another October of another year.
I’m walking briskly now, my shoulders
hunched and coat collar turned up turtle-like,
trying to protect my tingling ears from the
pre-dawn’s sudden drop below the freezing
mark, while from a distant church’s steeple
the matins bell of All Saints Day, like an
old man’s lethargic heartbeat, begins to toll
a doleful lament: Death is coming.
Death to all.

My shameful proclivity for superficiality

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by michael schinker in perceptions, poem, Spring

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perceptions

Enjoying a mug of hot tea
tonight I find it a reliable source
of comfort, to help ease away the
mental and physical distress
lingering on from a hectic day.
I’ve slumped into the soft cushions
of the love seat, the dog at my feet,
snuggled up next to my slippers,
that mug of my favorite
Ceylon Orange Pekoe steaming
on the table to my left by the lamp
with its warm white glow a friendly
assurance that darkness and fear
this night must keep their distance.
I didn’t actually brew it from tea leaves.
I just dip the bag right out of the box
into microwaved hot water, a thought
that makes me realize I’m not much of
a connoisseur when it comes to teas,
nor to wine.

I do like an occasional glass or two,
and I appreciate my Porto, tawny or ruby,
especially to help take the bite out of a
chilly Spring evening. But I could not
discuss with you the unique subtleties of
a Cab or a Merlot.

I’m usually prompted to make
my selection from the maze of displays
at the liquor store based on the
label design presenting the most
creative artwork and attractive typeface;
yet another realization that reminds me
of how I sometimes perceive people,
from the outside, like the proverbial
judgment of a book by its cover.
I can’t count how many editions of
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein I’ve wanted
to grab off the shelf just because of
the graphics on the jacket cover.
That in itself, a bit scary.

Such was my experience last week at
Bob’s Discount Wine and Spirits Outlet.
Cautiously inspecting it as though it were
some sort of mysterious, magical elixir,
I stood there wondering what would
actually come pouring out of this enticing
yet unfamiliar bottle of White Zin I had in
my hand and what might be fermenting
behind that anonymous face staring
at me from the next aisle over.
Perhaps in either case, a vintage
from the grapes of wrath.

Summer, 1956

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by michael schinker in poem, Summer

≈ 4 Comments

Sixty years ago, a boy had to find his own
adventures, especially when the rest of his
neighborhood pals disappeared inside for
an afternoon nap or headed downtown
to a movie matinee with their moms.
The quest then for my personal version
of excitement often led me on a solo
make-believe expedition into the shadowy,
secluded terrain in our expansive backyard.

Tiptoeing from one stone to the next,
carefully weaving around stalks of iris
and day lilies to avoid leaving any trace
of my climb through the rock garden,
I summit the top of the rampart to face
the challenge of my mission’s objective:
an enormous, stately weeping willow tree,
its forlorn limbs dancing hypnotically
in the gentle breeze, beckoning me onward
into unexplored territory, taunting me
to test my courage at perilous heights
like some kind of wild creature
instinctively familiar with the
forest primeval.

Grabbing at one branch after another,
I ascend as far as I dare, feeling the supple
top of the tree bending with the wind.
The willow and I are seemingly one now,
high above the rooftops, commanding a
bird’s-eye view of my little world far below.
The clouds appear almost within my reach,
and the sky has never looked so deep and
blue. I could stay perched here forever,
just gazing upward, looking for heaven.

Harbinger

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by michael schinker in poem, Spring, stars

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This year March wants us
to think it’s still February.
Tonight neighborhood chimneys
exhale wispy columns of smoke
straight up into a chilly black sky.
But then I see Arcturus climbing
above the northeastern rooftops
and remember what that means.
The cycle of seasons is turning
again right before my eyes,
with every tick on the clock.
But the progression seems slow.

Stars are like old friends to me,
faithful and familiar.
The brightest have proper names,
and even the dimmer ones
bear a Greek alphabetical tag.
I was 37 years younger when
the light I see this quiet evening
headed my way from that
first magnitude twinkling
orange speck in the Herdsman.
That time went by fast for me,
with light speed.

Winter will not surrender
just because the calendar
says it’s time to do so.
Here we are then, waiting for
the dawning of spring,
looking for our cue from nature
like tight little tulip buds
yearning to bloom, to gradually
let go, risking the threat of a
late frost, to finally unclench
supple petals and reach upwards
to our very own star.

Frozen Art

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by michael schinker in December, poem, winter

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My mother introduced me to Jack Frost
one early evening in a long ago December
as we huddled together in the dark
next to a front room window,
the cold from outside finding its way inside,
chilling our almost cheek-to-cheek faces.
Those were the days way before our
obsession with R-factors and insulation.
(I mean, we had lead and asbestos everywhere.)

Smiling, she pointed to Jack’s artful depiction of
a bouquet of frozen ferns etched with such
delicate grace on the thin pane of glass.
The frost was silvery white until the headlamps
from passing cars momentarily drenched the
designs with rainbow rich purples and
magentas and sparkling yellows.

Inside my impressionable four-year-old head
the magic made perfect sense, enchanting
a tender imagination before reason and
education would cruelly dispel sprites and
faeries and innocence and assumptions that
anything might be possible.

And so we gazed through that brittle canvass,
silently waiting for Pops to come home from work.
The corner streetlight seemed so alone out there,
a mysterious glowing globe of amber straining
with every possible watt to penetrate the long
hours of yet another bitter winter’s night.

Perspective

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by michael schinker in Jesus Christ, Life and death, poem

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There has to be something
better than this.
Sometimes I weep. How can there be
so much beauty and so much horror?
But my pensive lamentations are nothing
compared to those who literally suffer
without comfort.

In my own good fortune I dream in peace
through the night hours and the clock
always starts over at dawn.
Breakfast and coffee smell good and
I eat until I’m full. I enjoy art and nature.
Music is inspiring. It elevates my soul.
Our family is close. Love makes me warm all over.
I have everything I need, and some extras.
Even so, I am restless. Discontent. Doubtful.

Dale Carnegie and the Bible both say
You are what you think,
so then I should fill my head with positivity.
I need to get that half-empty glass to half-full.
Maybe things would be different though if I weren’t
scrambling to make up for my losses,
trying to repair the damage of too many decades,
running on borrowed time, helplessly watching
calendar pages fly away in the wind,
the grave always laughing in my face.

Have you ever noticed that children and dogs
have no regard for their ultimate end?
Is it better that way? No concern with eschatology?
I know why the Egyptians were so preoccupied
with prepping for the afterlife.
It’s because death looks so final.
We just cannot seem to accept that inescapable
last scenario, even if we try to invent a better one.
And as far as I know, only one person has come back
from the other side, the One who was dead
and is now alive forevermore,
to give us a glimmer of hope,
that there actually is something
better than this.

Frozen Art

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by michael schinker in December, poem, winter

≈ Leave a comment

Wrote these lines a few months ago, in the heat of summer. Don’t know why I thought about it then.

My mother introduced me to Jack Frost
one early evening in a long ago December
as we huddled together in the dark
next to a living room window,
the cold from outside finding its way inside
chilling our almost cheek-to-cheek faces.
Those were the days way before
our phobia with R-factors and insulation.
(I mean, we had lead and asbestos everywhere.)

Smiling, she pointed to Jack’s artful bouquet of frozen ferns
etched with such delicate grace on a thin pane of glass.
The frost was silvery white until the headlamps from passing cars
momentarily tinted the designs with rainbow rich
purples and magentas and yellows.

Inside my four-year-old head,
the magic made perfect sense,
feeding a tender imagination before reason and education
would dispel sprites and faeries and innocence and
all thoughts that anything might be possible.

And so we gazed through that brittle canvass,
silently waiting for Pops to come home from work.
The corner streetlight seemed so alone out there,
a mysterious glowing globe of amber
straining with every possible watt to penetrate
the long hours of yet another bitter winter’s night.