Nolo Segundo - Issue 35

Nolo Segundo is the pen name of retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] L.j. Carber, who became a published poet in his 8^th decade in over 260 literary journals in 21 countries on 4 continents, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, thrice for Best of the Net. Cyberwit.net has published 3 collections in softcover: THE ENORMITY OF EXISTENCE; OF ETHER AND EARTH; and SOUL SONGS. These titles reflect an awareness gained over 50 years ago when he had an NDE whilst nearly drowning: that he has—is–a consciousness predating birth and surviving death, what poets since Plato have called the soul. 

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BABYLAND

My wife and I

went to say hello

to her mother and

put flowers on her

grave

and as it was such

a vivid day shining

like life’s most

poignant dream (you

know, that feeling

you only get in late

autumn as the last

reluctant leaves

finally fall and old

man winter sends

hints of his coming

harsh arrival),

I suggested we go

for a quiet walk

through the large

silent park where

the dead reside in

undemanding patience.

We walked the long paths

of this community of souls,

stopping here and there

to read the grave markers

(and without telling my wife

I would compare their years

against my own, so often

amazed I had more, and

knowing my own youth of

unsweet carelessness, had to

wonder why).

Then we came upon a small

stonewall enclosure, with

a sign at its entrance:

BABYLAND

Within low walls of dead-cold

stone we saw the tiny grave

markers, most with but one

date beneath a name and often

an appellation (‘Little Bo’, ‘Our

Angel’, ‘My Lost Dream’)

though some had two dates,

usually only a few days apart,

sometimes a few months of life

were testified to.

As we left that saddest part of a

very sad place, I said to my wife,

‘It’s good they’re all together,

isn’t it?’

She nodded her head but turned

away so I could not see her eyes….

ODE TO MRS. MILLER

I did not know how brave she was--

Ninety-two and I, seventy less,

So young that old age

Was textbook stuff:

A fact of life,

But not mine.

I was alive and free

To stride the world,

A colossus of youth—

Whereas she had ate

Almost a century.

And all her friends

And all her family

Lay dead somewhere—

Except in her mind,

Still crisp, poignant

In its memories

Of a wealthy husband,

A daughter dead young.

Her own youth and beauty

Remaining lonely in a

Silver-framed photo.

She never complained,

This old lady—

Never once did I hear

Lamentations, a bewailing

For the richness of life:

The ripe fullness she once felt

As a wife, a mother, a woman

Of grace and beauty.

She lived alone

In a basement flat,

Barely five feet tall—

Yet I’ve never known

Any being braver—

Yet it is only now,

When I am become old,

I envy such courage.

NOW THE STARS HIDE

I grew up in the countryside

on a farm with the nearest

neighbor a quarter mile away.

Every night the stars shone,

unreachable precious jewels

adorning eternity—and I felt

very, very small and yet,

strangely, also very, very old

and more, oh so much more

than my daytime self drunk

on the petty and the mundane.

Now I live on a quarter acre

with neighbors on my left and

neighbors on my right and

neighbors across the street and

a big city so close it cloaks even

the light of night-born stars and

I am left only with the memory

of eternity….