Simple Holdings

I own a pear
and two pecans

enough grass
to stuff three pillows

a ceiling
that weeps on my face in bed

plenty of nails
but no paintings

My mother
blames herself for this

Visiting us she frets
that my family will go hungry

How can I tell her
we no longer worry

whether we are happy
or unhappy

We have neither too much
nor too little

nails to hang our clothes on
when we tire of wearing them

the costless smell of grass
while we sleep

and when my son cries
and refuses to eat

I produce two pecans and a pear
and juggle for him

I am not very good
but he claps delightedly

Even mother
has to hold her breath

at the pecans
passing swiftly hand to hand

and the pear
weightless as a sun in mid-air

by Robert Hill Long
Eugene, Oregon

Juggler Enters Heaven

It's only a crowd of Cub Scouts
he's here to entertain. Parents
and their blue and gold boys
laugh at his clown outfit:
he's rolling even before
the magic tricks.
He floats his newest jokes,
the air around his head is awash
with their laughter. He wrings
and braids balloons into fish,
stars, florescent plumed hats,
hands them to boys who grin
like grateful nephews.
The finale worries him,
but the clubs and pins go easily
into the air, their shafts like tools
his hands have worn for years.
To close he sets five balls
the size of tangerines into a ring.
He adds another. A white,
twisted rictus of a grin comes to his face
as he stares at the balls-now seven-
so hard that phosphenes shine
around them like sparklers in a darkened room,
stares at them until the stage
in his lower periphery begins to bow,
and sliding down its camber
he is deafened by their applause
as by the roar of horns,
and the audience exults,
picks up and passes him
over their shoulders, the balls
a blurry halo above his head.

by Mark O'Hara
Oxford, Ohio

_______________________

Juggler

Someone with skill juggles
three worlds together,
rainbow, miraculous arc.

Something compels a fourth,
widening the circle. Five,
six float in the charged

steep of his mind: soon
others whirl his wrist.
Seven, eight-now he's on

his toes, up, up, rising
with the music of the
spheres. Still unsatisfied,

risks the lot, down on his
knees. He dare not drop one.
Our lives depend on it.

by Lucien Stryk
Dekalb, Illinois