"Dashboards"

Guess it's time to post a poem. Something light.

Dashboards
by
Cathy Wilson

Other than his headstone
what could speak with more precision
about a man's disposition
than his dashboard.

It's out there - in the bright glare.

So friends, foes and his wife
can view the flotsam of his life
through the shield that won't be one,
as it lets their judgments through to rain on:
the coffee spills the cigar stubs,
the souvenirs from the Cubs.

His life revealed upon the dash
could set the tone of his funeral mass
where lying still beneath the rafters
he'll regret the mourners' smirky laughter
and spiritually wring his folded hands
and wish he'd made some pre-death plans
to wipe away a bit of dust
and plant some books by Robert Frost
so those who grieve could write some lines
about a nature so refined,
they found his books of poetry
wherein the odes to winter trees
were tagged by tear-stained memories
of when he lost the lotteries.


Robert Frost
Trees