Conversations Poem by Bob Bowers

How sweet it is
Listening to my wife
Talking on the phone with
Our daughter
Bubbles of laughter
“Really? ” she says—
To what I wonder.

It is a joy to me,
A man who cannot communicate well
After a life of communicating always
In the work I did,
After a life
Among men who
Tell each other
How the world should run,
Who should be allowed to do what
To his body
Or hers,
Who should be able to shoot whom
When,
And how,
The voices incessant,
A cacophony of ideas
Claiming the future is ours
When it is their own
They seem to proclaim most earnestly.

Earlier she talked with our
Youngest daughter,
Spoke of jobs and apartments
And friends
And the little things in life
That call you back to
Yesterday’s youth.

It is the sound of women’s voices
That makes the world seem right,
Hearing only one end of the
Conversation
While my inner ear hears both,
Stirs up in me a smile,
Warms me.

A mother talking to her daughters.
A daughter talking to her mother.
What better food is there
To feed the soul.



February 1,2004 (rev.10/7/09)