Softly and
tenderly
Bert Haverkate-Ens
Venus was rising
when I saw a young man running
on the Central track.
As I approached I saw he had as many years
as I do.
He admitted the craziness
of staying young forever,
but he was looking at Venus
when he said it,
and we talked of the dying crescent moon,
still holding on at several billion.
I headed for the river,
at a walk,
I’m feeling my years,
and that I’m just getting started,
Venus still rising over my right shoulder.
As I approached the Gazebo,
I saw a man rise,
to a sitting position.
It appeared that he has my age,
but perhaps he was as old as Jesus,
if he had indeed been resurrected from the dead,
and had kept himself in really good shape,
by running early every morning.
But he looked around,
and seeing no one who wanted his help,
he laid his head down by his boots,
and Jesus slept.
I stopped for a swallow of water
at a fountain on Mass,
then washed my face
in a sprinkler popped-up
in a flower bed.
I tested the new bench
in the doorway of Minsky’s Pizza.
The acoustics were good.
Softly and tenderly,
Jesus is calling …
I still hear my mother calling
and she’s been gone
as far as I know,
for some time,
so while forever might be crazy,
I don’t know what the white-haired man
thought after he heard,
ye who are weary,
come home …
shortly before he saw someone
my age sitting on
the bench, tucked away,
echoes still bouncing off
the brown brick walls.
I passed him shortly thereafter,
farther up the street,
he has a few more years on me.
Venus was still rising,
but fading into the brightening sky,
I don’t understand what this all means,
but I’m approaching the river -
I have faith that the sun will be rising soon,
a commonplace,
but no less improbable
that I should be here to see it.
As always and nearly forever,
in the limited perspective
I carry with me,
the sky is reflected in the river,
such a wreck of a river,
the Kaw,
it’s so filled with farmland,
I wouldn’t be surprised to see
Jesus walking on the water,
even at his age.
I paused,
not to quench my thirst,
at the fountain by the levee,
but for a taste.
And as I recrossed the bridge
and headed home,
the sun rose again.
It’ll be a hundred degrees,
before long.
I saw the guy who reminded me of Jesus
walking on the other side of Mass Street;
he too had risen again,
and was wearing his yellow work boots,
walking on concrete.
And then I saw the young man,
my age,
peddling off to work.
Softly and tenderly
I opened the back door;
the sinner’s come home.
The cowgirl
and the dude
Bert Haverkate-Ens
Across the street strode the young,
blazing blond, cowgirl.
I couldn’t help noticing
her long, strong, prairie-burned, legs
above the tops of her scuffled boots
and below the fringe of her jean cutoffs.
billowed in the Kansas wind
over a white T.
Git along, little doggies –
her cattle were nowhere in sight,
but I am certain she caught up with them
after she vanished
from my sun-shot squint.
Will
Bert Haverkate-Ens
I know a kid who skates the long board;
he’s so cool that if you don’t look carefully
you’ll miss the finger flick of acknowledgement,
or perhaps he makes no sign at all,
his eyes already a half-block ahead,
searching for the next concrete wave.
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