On becoming friends.

This is where we first,
became known,
this one and I.

We where not friends,
far too long.

Too much alike,
to ever be the same.

We exercised our demons,
together,
a-part.

It is asphalt now,
as it was then,

this the playground,
and our friendship.

Have we changed much,
this parking lot,
and I.

Does difference, make us the same?

How much of our distance was of my fault.

Then the comes the letter,
we are different no more,
now always the same.

I mourn now the choices we make,
the pain I did not remove,
the light I did not bring.

Till we meet again my friend,

I exercise my demons
and seek the light.

*revised July 2018 from a poem posted to Facebook in July 2015 on the suicide of a friend Kelley Niederhauser.

It is a parking lot made from the playground of the old. Woodruff Elementary School in Logan Utah.

Kelley wrote me a letter when we left on our mission's.  I still long for the memories we did not share.  If we had reconciled sooner or I had shared myself more, their might have been a different ending.

When I had my darkest day no firearms were in the home.  Still understand do I and greave the loss of what might have been.

On grandpas anvil

Grandpa's anvil
sits in the garage.

He used it to create,
horseshoes.

We use it to repair,
cars.

Dad tells me it left home, once.
Grandpa went to fetch it home.

A neighbor had a need,
then returned it, not.
Grandpa pulled out a switch,
and beat that anvil.

Grandpa was a small man,
over the shoulder he carried it,
told that anvil never to leave home again.

This story my Dad tells me about of his granddad.

Passed down through the ages,
the story, and anvil.
Always together,
never apart.

What will they, carry, down.
My children, when gone, I am?

This my Luv, and the truth, I share.