First Things RSS Feed - Stephen Scaer

Wedding Toast

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:00:00 -0500

Here’s hoping the years will be kind
and plenteous; through them you find
new charms in your lover,
and should you discover
a flaw, you’ll be willfully blind.

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No Matter Where You Go . . .

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 00:00:00 -0400

She texts atop Mount Washington
then switches to her headphones
when she descends the gulches of
the presidential deadzones.

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Drop-off Day

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 -0500

Make sure you give yourself a chance to grieve,
A parent handout helpfully suggests.
My last one’s gone; I thought she’d never leave.
Children at this stage in life are guests
who have outstayed their welcome. Why deceive
myself, pretend I’m sad when empty nests
are full of possibilities? Why mourn?
I haven’t had much peace since they were born.

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Prayer for a Meeting

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Come, Holy Spirit, fill me with affection
for sycophantic colleagues who pretend a
boss’s remark is witty; the projection
of Power Points that stray from the agenda
with pie charts, false and darkly personal,
that narrow my dominion to a sliver,
and bullets saying things are worse in all
of my performance measurements. Deliver
your lamb to valleys where he’ll safely graze,
or help me love your children at this table,
to hold my tongue, unless to sing your praise
in every situation, so I’m able
to be content in everything, like Paul,
who loved those whom he didn’t like at all.

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Anniversary In-Sink-Erator

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The stream beneath the site of our proposal
at Vista Valley Country Club’s faux bridge
has brought us here to shop for a disposal
on Friday night at Lowe’s on Sunset Ridge
uphill from Toys-R-Us. Our love was founded
and sealed when we agreed to wear these bands.
These symbols of infinity surrounded
the two of us in youth. Now we’re old hands,
who throughout thirty years have learned to wipe
bottoms and tears, and that these rings of gold
are nothing more than tiny bits of pipe”
expensive plumbing with a bent to hold
resentments since we plug them with our fingers.
Tonight we’ll buy a ring where nothing lingers.

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Time Management

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Luther in the year he spent
as Junker Joerg in Wartburg towers,
translated the New Testament
to pass the everlasting hours.

Though living as a refugee
Erasmus wrote his tour de force.
In Praise of Folly ’s said to be
the product of a trip by horse.

With dinners late, D’Aguesseau saw
an opportunity to write
his sixteen-volume work of law
in fifteen minutes every night.

Today I slept late, took a walk,
sipped coffee on my ragged lawn,
checked the mailbox, saw the clock,
and noticed half my life was gone.

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Backyard Triumph

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Truant from April chores
I daydream in a chair
beneath a tree that scatters
its petals when it stirs,
the way a girl might scatter
blossoms before a litter
that brings a self-made god
exultant down her road,
while Calvinistic bees
insist that glory’s brief.
Extend the allegory:
should petals fall before me?
I’ve not been made aware
of having won a war,
and I did not design
a bridge or new vaccine.
The leaves against my fence
betray my indolence.
This fragrant celebration
might be for anyone.
I know it’s undeserved
but that has not deterred
me from taking pleasure
in the soft spring weather.
The triumphs that I seek
are held for their own sake,
and shower us with grace
like petals on the grass.

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Pumpkin Hurling

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Every Columbus Day

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