Love Is In The Small Things

I hold her hand

So nervous like the first time

She offers me a gentle smile

It hides a trace of pain

2 Days mean more

When they’e numbered

I can’t imagine my days Here 

Living without her

3 She use to make my meals

Use to mend my clothes 

Now there’s only shadows 

Where she made a small house our home

4 The sounds of laughing children

Once filled these empty rooms

The best of times in our life

We danced and laughed and struggled through

Those were the days

Even if we didn’t know it

Love is in the small things

Seldom seen and often go unnoticed 

1 She wants to walk in the garden

But her legs have grown weak

I help her to the window 

She shuffles her feet

2 Holding hands in silence 

Siting in the setting sun (ya see)

Love doesn’t belong 

Only to the young

3 Sunday drives in the country

Picnics by the lake

It doesn’t seem that long ago

But time moves on, refuses to wait

4 Whispers a Hail Mary

Tells me there’s angel circling

She can hear them calling

Calling her name

5 I kiss her forehead, and say

If you must go, I understand

What will I do without my sweetheart

Who I shared my life, hand in hand

Those were the days

Even if we didn’t know it

Love is in the small things

Seldom seen or noticed 

Those Were The Days

Sorry I can’t make it to your mothers Celebration of Life event. This will be my final installment to Jeanne’s letter writing project. I hope she enjoyed the previous eight letters I sent to her while she was in the rest home. I hope they comforted her and made her laugh or perhaps cry—- my stories and words were intended to help her relive some of those good ole days we shared on Briar Lane. I can’t be there to tell my story in person, but if there is a place where pictures and such are being displayed, perhaps you can post this letter.

I’m going back, I’m going way back in time. Back to the 70’s. Back to when classic rock wasn’t something you now hear being played in the produce department of Safeway. There is something unsettling about listening to Van Halen “You Really Got Me” on the store sound-system as I watch an elderly woman examine the firmness of a zucchini. 

 No, I’m going back to when rock and roll was still rebellious and social networking was hollering out your car window at girls in their cars—I can still recall those hot summer Yuba City nights and that distinctive scent of rotten peaches lingering in the stale night air. It’s the end of August and another summer is slipping away. The sound of crickets, bullfrogs and a lone barking dog make up the evenings chorus. Thoughts of returning to school leaves me feeling flat and uninspired. This is the stuff that keeps a small agriculture town like Yuba City forever tucked away at the edges of my memories. We all carry pieces of our hometowns within us. Rainy days playing monopoly, making jokes to hide our insecurities, experiencing an awkward first kiss, playing baseball in a weed strewn field, climbing the levee for a swim in the the river——and coming to appreciate the value of being part of our Briar Lane gang——-where we made friendships to last us a life time.

Back then, on our block we played outside until it got dark or someone’s mom hollered “Supper time”. Yeah, “those were the days”. That’s what old farts use to say to me when I was a kid. I thought that was a bunch of nonsense, but now that I’m an old fart, I find myself muttering “Those were the days”. I suppose, ya don’t know somethings, until you’re ready to know them. Sometimes it’s too late——- and there’s nothing worse than being too late. Too late to share a morning walk, too late to share an evening sunset. Too late to share all those seemingly insignificant moments that comprise a lifetime. Too late to say the things you always intended to say. Things like, thanks for always being on my side, thanks for believing in me when no one else did——thanks for loving me—-cause that ain’t always such an easy thing to do——just ask my wife.

So there you lay and here I stand. Although you no longer inhabit your body and it no longer imprisons you——-I will always carry your voice and memory within me. Somethings are immortal. Somethings never die. 

Jeanne——mother, wife, friend, neighbor, teacher, counselor, life learner, strong and courages, gone but never forgotten.  And to you I proudly say—— “I love you”.

Victor S. Uriz II

Briar Lane Poet Laureate  

The Forgiveness Song

This one’s for all the old couples who stuck it out through the hard times.

I’m tired of you

Being tired of me

I’m tired of me 

Being tired of you

Once again

You forgive me

Once again 

I forgive you (2X)

Your my friend and lover

I’m your lover and friend

We’re still together

Cause we’ve learned how to bend

Wrote you a love song

Wrote me a letter

Some loves fall apart==but

We’re better off together

We can take bike

We can take a bus

Enjoy the ride 

Don’t get in a rush

Come on to bed

Don’t make a fuss

Shut off those lights

I’m gonna make ya blush

I’ve been wrong

A few times right

You’ve been right

A few times wrong

After all our trials

And tribulations 

Our loves like a sweet song

Playing on a country station (2x)

Gave me a kiss, and a hug

Gave ya a hug, and a kiss

Turn tears to laughter

Cause it’s better than being pissed

Doubts and questions

We’ve had a few

But, you still love me

And, I still love you

We can take a Harley

We can take a bus

Enjoy the ride 

Don’t get in a rush

Come on to bed

Don’t make a fuss

Shut off those lights

We’ll polish off the dust

I’m gonna make ya blush

At The Speed Of Foreverness

In spite of our long days and the swiftness of these passing years 

We’ve reluctantly grown old
Old as in running out of time
The potholed street of aging leads to a cul de sac of convalescence 

Age robs us of youths vanities
It rubs our hair off, dulls our eyesight and deafens our hearing
We slowly cave in on ourselves

We can no longer get by on our sexiness or youthful bravado 
We’re left with a fading wit and the shreds of a once charmed personality

This leaves some bitter, while others are liberated 
There’s nothing more attractive than someone who no longer gives a shit about what others think of them

Shriveled skin, brittle bones, hemorrhoids and varicose veins ain’t so bad

It’s the fading of memories and the onset of feeble mindedness that leaves us befuddled

There’s that moment of confusion when we enter a room and forget what we needed there, or what we were looking for, or even why we came there in the first place???

But, I’ll fight like hell to forever remember your face 

							

Still Not Feeling My Our Age

A tune about old folks loving life and having fun, cause fun isn’t just for the young ones. Stay Young at heart.

“We don’t stop playing cause we get old, we get old because we stop playing” George Bernard Shaw