All families are unusual in their own way. Why love seems so complicated I can't say. When I've sent this biographical poem to others they ask, what's the problem, life was wonderful and then changed--what's your complaint? Grow up! I agree, my mother (Irish) knew a lot about sur-vival, emotional and otherwise. But I do think the complexity of it all did make a good poem! Published in Coffee Press Journal in 2006. Copyright to J. Donald Coonrod.

We grew up in a farm house,
smelling the sweet hay,
eyes closed sleepily in
sun zippered sunsets;

all night in mellow air
under open windows,
dream kisses on our lips,
as dawn came up yawning
in loving suppleness.

Our imaginations swam;
an Irish mother’s doing—
wheat fields were great
golden snakes, sinuous in
the wind, stalking unwary
children, squeezing, until
butter yellow stars beckoned
from flooded skies.

Now and then we took time out
to care for crippled robins,
in the hospital on our porch
and delighted in feeding
them worms.

Then, slowly as we grew,
summers’charms began to fall away,
eventually to fail forever in
winter’s intricate ice, covering
Springs that should have come
spiraling up from burgeoning earth
flowering into beautiful memories.

Last night I dreamed again
of the farm; the garden earth,
dark granular loam falling loosely
through my hands. when suddenly,
mother appeared, a little smile
on her face--"tomatoes" she said,
clutching the soft red pulp so hard
it bled, and then she faded, washed
away in time--flash and photograph
reversed, with no way left now
for us to know, what the other
had needed most.