Sean Sullivan: 22 books

Mildred has seen many winters through her high window, watched friends and family come and go with the decades. But through it all the old house never let her down, kept her warm and safe from the world outside. Now Mildred and the house are feeling their age, and the old woman sees the end coming...

You’re there in that car, half asleep / Lost in thought and diversions deep / Your fellow travelers passing you by / All in undue time on their way to die

I spy you there without your shoes / Shy mere months the terrible twos / This is I think, that precious age / Your tottering and prolific phase / When little legs in / rapturous rage / Are one rambling, run-on phrase / Pitter pattering across the page

There’s a barn upon which sunlight daily descends / On whose brilliance its fiber’s existence depends

Into our lives a goldfish came and went / A king among his castles and coral / And who seemed somehow as if meant / To school us what is merciful, moral

A girl upon waking is like the sunrise / When she hums and she smiles, opens her eyes

His lusty dog days long since done / Clinging yet to those weeks of youth / Still green with envy of summer sun / An agreeable autumn hedging truth

In a foreign land, a girl on her own / The language and landscape wholly unknown / Perhaps looking for love is the reason she came / Or it’s happenstance, acquaintance by chance / Either way may she find the upshot the same / A life-changing kiss and whirlwind romance

Over the waterfall and before the trail / Great stairs of stone were built below / Lean on, look down from bridge’s rail / To hear and watch the white water go

I saw you there lonely by the roadside / A raccoon who in crossing had died / On your back, face upturned to a tree / A lofty place a raccoon nest might be

I chanced upon this story several years ago / In a newspaper bound for the recycle bin / A plea for advice penned by you, Jane Doe / I had only glanced but found it drew me in

Wade out with me in autumn air / Come. See the bounty branches bear / Float among the trees, you and I / Soaked in blue New England sky

Gazing skyward, sense and substance to find / A man's fate with star signs is sadly entwined / Odd chamber of echoes that vacuum of space / Swallows his cries of injustice with nary a trace / So much too of the hope and blame we misplace /

Saw birds take flight within the mallThe world outside beset by snowfallBeneath this roof of benevolent glassIn a blur of graceful brown they pass