Coda

written By

Just yesterday, I was a maestro
cajoling music from frenzied
emails, staccato deadlines, those
who fawned for favor with miraculously
conjured old-world blintzes and rugelach
to remind me of my grandmother.
Today, their eyes avert as I steal
down the halls like the haunting
flute of Ravel’s Pantomime. I had ignored
this unspooling of my life, the oncoming quiet
to be filled with crisp apples and lemon zest wafting
from my wife’s oven. The swift bounce and catch
of a four square ball and my granddaughters’
uncontained excitement. The grit of beach
sand on my feet while sailboats bow in the wind
and the song of the sea anoints me in grateful reverie.

 

  • David Stern came to the literary world after a long career as a physician-scientist and health sciences administrator. His recent writing has appeared in The Write Launch, Windmill, Free Spirit Publishing, 1922 Revival/VOICES, Streetlight Magazine, The Awakenings Review, Manifest Station, and other publications. A native of Long Island’s North Shore, where he spent summers sailing on Long Island Sound, he now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife of nearly fifty years, Kathleen, an artist.

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