"Fistful of Glass Beads"

Fistful of Glass Beads

I thought how lucky to live so long,

to travel so widely, succeed at disparate callings,

to have known that Mardi Gras trampoline lust,

that “Throw me sometin’ mister”-- reach or bust.

That’s a life, I thought. And now to boot,

the voodoo touch, when words make magic.

Yet life’s not the same. Is it

the ending’s near? Or earlier effortless energy

in mere memory lies? At best

swept up in childhood rhyme, rolling

a fistful of glass beads between index and thumb,

I stumble over what exists,

the future that defines today, the sands

I’ve written in, the wrecks left leaning.

William Rivera is the author of four collections of poems: Café Select (Poet’s Choice Publisher, 2016); Noise (Broadkill River Press, December 2015): The Living Clock (Finishing Line Press, 2013); and Buried in the Mind's Backyard (Brickhouse Books, Inc. 2011). Born in New Orleans, Rivera has traveled widely (in more than 20 countries). He taught agricultural development at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1981-2009. He has published in numerous small literary magazines.