BONUS SONNET: A Hermit, Humbled

Blood drives have set my social calendar

For too long now, I see, as my worst friend,

Who no longer runs Cheyenne's events -- er...

No longer makes the standard call whose end

Is tapping me, for which the dear still thinks

He needs to ply me with a fun night out

Of catching up, bar trivia and drinks.

He knows better, of course, but now without

That fall-back we have let a month go by.

Today I noticed this and felt bad, so

A bowling night has drawn me out. Now I

Sit in the alley drinking with comrades

And humbled. They forgive me these, my bads.

In Which I Have Mixed Feelings That I No Longer Go "Back To School"

September means they're back out on the streets,

School buses lumber back to school. It's fall:

A season's ended. Something each child meets

Is this fate: playtime's over. I recall

A gladness when this time would roll around,

For school was something I always did well,

Though fellow students always did confound

Me and my efforts. Often it was hell.

Each kid feels singled out as somehow wrong,

Not knowing all feel wrong and most just watch

The crowd for cues, and follow the most strong,

Just waiting for that mistimed step or botch

Of ritual to signal who is ripe

To fall. And yes, I was the falling type.

In Which I Peer Out At The Sky And Back On Us

We go forward and back, just looking out

Our windows or through telescopes and tools.

The Kepler probe has taught us more about

A thousand-light-year distant world we fools

Had thought we understood already; not

A bit like any planets we have here.

But thousand-year-old data's all we've got.

Around Hat-P-7b it's old news. Fear --

So slight but real -- grips me: I ask what if

The star, the planet, are still really there.

Just sixty-four years earlier, our stiff

Resolve to end a war led us to dare

Unleashing solar physics on Japan.

Will we still be here when some others scan?