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Fredrick Zydek Things My Mother Never Told Me Learning how to balance a checkbook would have been nice, or how to make my own bed, build a soup or weed the flowers. Everyone seemed to think I knew what to do even if no one had ever shown me. At five, they ha me pulling my little red wagon out to the farm to get milk, butter, eggs and garden greens. There were no sidewalks in those days; I pulled my wagon alongside the road. Paved walks were uptown; I pulled my wagon there too, note in hand, for grub and cigarettes to take back to Mother's kitchen. No one suggested I might be too young to cross streets on my own. I can't remember anyone teaching me to read. I don't know if I picked it up through osmosis or from Dick and Jane. That words spoken could be reproduced, put on paper to be read again and again, didn't seem like a mystery to me until after I passed fifty years of age. I took so much for granted while I was growing up. If I was hungry I ate, thirsty I drank and if I wanted to play, I went out to the woods and climbed trees. No one ever told me mountain lions and bears could climb trees or that just because bees made honey didn't mean I could take it without getting stung. Lastly, it would have been nice to know that life isn't supposed to be fair but if we're lucky, it will prove to be interesting. Praying for One in Transition                             --for Terry Storm Strange how no one uses the word. They say, he's very close or he could pass at any time. Not even the nurse uses the word. She tells us it may be time to call the rest of the family and asks if we have made all the necessary arrangements. We're not even sure if we call for an ambulance or a hearse when the time comes but nod as if we have been through this before, know what is expected of us, have made plans right down to the suit he will wear in his casket and who among us will deliver the eulogy. Truth is -- we do not even know how to put the word into our prayers. We ask for God's will, a peaceful transition, grace. But we do not say the word. We want it to remain a stranger among us forever. ©2005 by Fredrick Zydek Fredrick Zydek is the author of eight collections of poetry. Takopachuk: the Buckley Poems is forthcoming from Winthrop Press later this year. Formerly a professor of creative writing and theology at the University of Nebraska and later at the College of Saint Mary, he is now a gentleman farmer when he isn't writing. He is the editor for Lone Willow Press.

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