Autumn's keen colors
bust out gold-flecked
and lucent
A fetching masquerade
Til one day the facade drops
The flaunting stops
And we face our transformation --
The body of real things
The cleansing verity of snow, yes:
We make our cold confessions
to it --
Our sooth world unadorned;
No high fashion statements
No sweet smells from the earth.
Just the white truth of being --
Nov 19, 2020
Nov 19, 2020 at 7:34 PM UTC
In the deep woods near,
The trees are poets;
They write their rustling
Lines against a paper sky --
Invited to their mystic house
I am brought to life,
Embraced and entwined
Like a prodigal child
Forgiven everything --
The forest floor is cool and still
Yet below, the earth is humming
Sweet-scented and loamy
Pulling at some memory that
Beats ancient in me --
Such tempo'd spells sing
Among the ferns here:
Beckoning
Oct 25, 2020
Oct 25, 2020 at 8:24 AM UTC
Remember June
Green enduring
Clover growing madly
Rose's thorns
Gardens lush
From feasts of rain
Here and gone
Leaving water wells behind
And drip-drops hugging
Heaps of stones and moss --
A thousand smells
A thousand dank secrets
All of life stretching upward
To regard the Sun, who
Mightily beats his yellow drum --
Who am I
But June's curator,
Tending her summer works?
Jul 17, 2020
Jul 17, 2020 at 3:00 PM UTC
There is a stirring
when one sees with clarity
what lies ahead --
Edges sharpen, and
the air pressure drops.
Trees rustle where
there is no breeze;
A wind chime tinkles
in a desolate place
and it feels like
the end of time--
Feb 5, 2020
Feb 5, 2020 at 9:36 AM UTC
On tiptoes
I reach for a scarf
And mittens come tumbling down
Long forgotten
Knitted for my small hands --
I smile,
Remembering the first time
I pulled them on
As if the yarn was moonlight
Sending its secret code to me,
The answer,
And my fingers hummed
their gratitude --
They are perfectly two and blue
Soft as bird's down
Carrying humble memories
in a life's broad expanse
Yet they are nonetheless
Magnificent --
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 1:34 PM UTC
I -- am with her right now
The small girl who lives in my heart's recess
And fills that beating palace with hope --
She sits in a patch of grass, just beyond,
In my mind's open meadow,
Singing to herself and picking blueberries
she puts in her pocket.
She counts clouds on purple-stained fingers
And giggles at the chickadee's song
Phoe-be! Phoe-be!
Forever six years old --
Sunlight tangles in her hair
As she twirls and fans her sundress,
plopping to the ground
Her laughter filling an innocent sky --
She is luminous
The love between us:
The deepest kind --
Jan 8, 2020
Jan 8, 2020 at 9:18 AM UTC
Tiny shops hunch in a row
On brick and clapboard feet
A huddle of windows filled
with come-on-in
The sun slides behind their flat tops
As I wait for you on the bridge --
Clouds push and shove each other
Across a dusky sky:
I watch you cross the street
A thief bearing a single plucked flower
Your pockets crammed with promises
that won't be kept
But I don't care
My pulse is launching rockets --
The river beneath flows
in irrefutable rhyme
Smells of moss and deadwood
fill the air
Brown geese out for a swim
are making social calls
As you take my hand
Small
Into yours
And I know
When I look into your eyes
I must never kiss you
As twilight tucks us in
And brushes back our hair --
Dec 24, 2019
Dec 24, 2019 at 1:32 PM UTC
Christmas comes:
A juggernaut
Lumbering through December
Overstuffed
Once benevolent
Now all razzmatazz
And who gets what
A free-for-all at the bargain bins;
And by the way Peace on Earth --
Dec 22, 2019
Dec 22, 2019 at 9:04 AM UTC
This dream
Unafraid
Sits close to me
on slumber's bench
Our shoulders touch
One of us ephemeral
One bound to finity
Seeking answers
in the other
Look down
Look down
The purple crocus sings
Here I am --
Dec 4, 2019
Dec 4, 2019 at 8:09 AM UTC