Gwendlyn Heleen Fairfax

Rochester, NY, USA

Gwendlyn Heleen Fairfax was born in Rochester, New York where her parents immigrated from Canada and Australia. She attended Arizona State and has three grown sons, Curran, Sean, and Ian, from her first marriage to David Brown. Presently, she is working as an optimetric tech and child care provider and has spent a number of years in airbrush photo-retouching. Gwen has remarried to John Wallenbeck and they have eight grandchildren between them.

Happiness

To hear your smiles
To feel your joy
Your warm hearted laughter
spilling across my shoulder
Tender hands creating soft sighs
Then turning to see the light of the sky
as it bends to touch your eyes
Knowing you is a special happiness
A small child's hugging arm at my hip
The glistening shine on its plump lower lip,
quickly moistened after a delectable treat
Then the blush of color on the full
rounded cheek
This is a moment of happiness
A quiet night of deep restful sleep.
The wake to the languid, tingling, feeling, of reach
for arms that continue to keep on running to encircle one another
Yet open wide to welcome each others feats
This is the ultimate happiness

Sadness

I can dream no more
by the concrete shore
of a parking lot that is no more
like the buildings that once stood there
than eggs are like salmon.
Thrust on the world one bright warm morning
by this female spawning, yawning, her way up stream to
fail and quietly die
The character had been reduced
to non-descript we deduced
and the dreams lay bruised in stone beside the grass.

Reflections

Something utilitarian to obstruct the view
Is necessary for those of us who
prefer to relate
to our life of late.
In a manner reminiscent of the hue
of the grass
of the sun
miles of rippling waters
done on a pallet with a
background near the sky