After I Died

I am walking on a long, outstretched path,
Somewhere I’ve never been
Yet familiar somehow,
Past verdant bushes and trees,
New life sprouting, flashing from every direction,
Bushels of multicolored leaves,
Rainbows of sudden spring flowers,
Glistening gold and green painted hillsides,
Walking without destination
Yet toward something, large.

A promise?
A transformation?

I am walking alone
In the cool crisp air of morning,
Or is it evening?
No sense of time.
A yellow sparrow flutters down
A few steps ahead,
Deliberately attracting my attention,
Then hopping along with me,
Keeping a safe distance,
Leading me from her nesting place
Until we’ve traveled far enough away,
Then she is gone.

I am walking without destination
But something significant is happening.
I am changing in some undefinable way,
Transforming into something long wished,
A childhood dream.

Then,
Suddenly,
Without thought,
I rise and take flight.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Battlefield

It is certainty that contends
On the battlefields of just cause,
Justifying employments of war’s less noble deeds,
Accepting war’s indiscriminate consequences,
The plight of millions,
This persistence of terror.

We fight our way through centuries,
Through millennia.
We are little changed.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Hero

I do not want my son to be a hero,
Whose name will be read among the honored dead,
Who will be forever young in the picture that is hung
On his empty bedroom wall,
O dear God don’t let him fall
In battle and attack,
Please bring him safely back.

I do not want my son to be a hero.



~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Our Waitress Exploded

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood . . . .

~ The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Late one evening of joviality

With our favorite coffee shop waitress,

She remarked: “You’re here more than I am.”

How could she know?

Only if she were actually in two different places

At the same time,

Home watching television

While simultaneously working the night shift.

“How could you know?” I queried.

A sudden realization washed over her

Like a subatomic particle

Racing around the Large Hadron Collider.

The two waitresses became aware of each other’s existence

And sought to unite the matter and antimatter of their beings.

A mistake.

The waitresses’ subatomic particles and antiparticles

Touched and exploded.

They were annihilated,

Thrust into a Parallel Universe

Where they emerged from a Black Hole,

Transformed into Hawking Radiation.

One minute she was here,

Standing behind the cash register

In front of the display case of assorted pies and cookies,

The next zeptosecond—Gone!

While ravenous coffee shop patrons searched for her in vain.

That was the last anyone ever saw of her,

Except for the developmentally challenged busboy

Who swept her leftover protons into a corner.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Two Resolutions

When this life has worn you weary
And each day is a struggle
To find meaning,
Resolve to be honest,
About everything,
All day long.

Resolve to be kind,
With everyone,
All day long.

Then,
Meaning will return.


~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved