Two Poems By Stanley Toledo

Worlds Apart
  
My twin sister went, I stayed.
If I went and she stayed, I think
I would always ponder
what if I stayed.
  
Yes, wonders lie ahead in new worlds
across oceans, but when I read
Emily Dickinson, I delight because
I have seen how wonder is present
in the old and familiar.  
  
There is beauty here as well as 
over there but heartaches come too.
My sister has had a hard time of it
and so have I.  
  
Still, I think I will always ponder
what if I went.  

The Old Place
  
The Old Place, a poem you had
On mind but not on paper, flutters
Before me in this way.
  
Dad at the barn, Mom in the kitchen,
Sisters at play, chickens before the coop,
Melons rising in the field.
  
Summers were Portuguese festas
And dances; winters, stories of 
The Azores around a wood-burning stove
  
And wonder of things to come.
But the old place is gone now and so
Are you.  Now we have a new place – 
  
Orange skies at noon and the passing
Of character 
Across the land. 

Stanley Toledo writes verse and plays, which are performed in theatres in the U.S. and aboard.  His work has been published in Ponder Review, Santa Ana River Review, Luminous Expression, The Martian Chronicle and Sage Cigarettes.  He lives in the California delta.