While I Sit By My Window With My Dogs

By Danny Joe Robb

In the hills behind my house, bodies burn

The vapors rise over the sakuras

While I sit by my window with my dogs

Cars pull up to the crematorium

Big boxes go in, small ones come out, see

In the hills behind my house, bodies burn

Minutes turn to months, the dying to dead

Living goes well with mochi and green tea

While I sit by my window with my dogs

My wife asks me to help clean. It is Spring

Put this up, throw that out, make more room, see

In the hills behind my house, bodies burn

But the harder task is choosing right words

To undertake the meaning of my thoughts

While I sit by my window with my dogs

The five o’clock bells beckon children home

A call to gather, a time to return

In the hills behind my house, bodies burn

While I sit by my window with my dogs

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Danny Joe Robb is a Jack of many trades but only a Master of two dogs (he thinks). A former professional engineer and retired U.S. Air Force Reserve Colonel, his writing credentials include a Certificate in Fiction Writing from the UCLA Writers Extension along with completion of their Masters Course in Novel Writing. His short story "The Problem with Probabilities" was recently published in Flash Fiction Magazine (no pay), and his poem "Farting While Asleep on a 787 Starliner" just made print in the 148th edition of Space and Time magazine ($5). Danny Joe currently resides in Japan with his wife, Mary Tomonaga, and their dogs, Ichiro and Owen.