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L B Dec 2019
It is right
that the day is gray
that the sun is not prying
No one should see me
mourning

If I didn't love you
What are these tears
in free fall
How do I love you now?  Not that I ever knew.
L B Dec 2019
...what I don't understand--
what seems a sudden unexplained cultural shift
related to who can afford it.

Whenever money is in the agenda,
my back hairs stand up

It is only by asking questions that others can grow to understand.
I have been following the news on Transexuality since it first appeared on TV and magazines.  It was a story about a little child feeling misgendered.  I was sympathetic to her predicament.

I Was Under the Impression that The First Amendment Was Important Here!
So I am under Review???
*******, Hypocrit!  Put back up, or I'm gone!
Signed,
The Prickly *****
L B Dec 2019
I do not understand transitioning
to what?
to hormones?
to surgeries?
to maiming?
mutilation?

If trans is not new
what did
other times and people do?

Perhaps they accepted themselves
no matter how born or grown
Adorned the way they wanted
created by the beauty of the day
among the company they kept

Maybe they danced in the  continuum
of their music and sexuality
somewhere between the male and female
There lies the mystery
I have thought about this a lot.  Most people land at the ends of the continuum, but a fair number scattered in between.  Seems "trans" is a modern medical/surgical construct, forced upon many by denial and lack  of acceptance-- to make a person look that way?  My understanding is trans is hermaphrodite.  What do I know?  Why would someone endure disfigurement to deny themselves and any future choices they might have?  Seems this is a medical money-maker that could destroy the health of many young people whose expression is NOT abnormal.
  Dec 2019 L B
Golden Flower
Do the flowers mourn when one is picked?
I know that question is kinda morbid and sick.
But I’ve always wondered if they somehow know,
Like for weddings and birthdays that it’s their time to go?

Do they feel sorry for lovestruck dames,
That pull off petals whilst saying their crushes’ names,
That pulled the last petal on “He loves me not”?
Do they feel bad that she’s distraught?

Do they compete on who’s the prettiest?
Each person has an opinion of which flower is the best,
Of their looks are they actually aware,
Do flowers even care?
L B Dec 2019
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Swainsons_Thrush/
There are no words that rightfully capture this. Not even human poetry....
L B Nov 2019
The Harvest of Life Exchanging Itself

     “May I help you?” – More busy in my voice than hurried. A woman points to a quart of peaches she's been studying.  “Sure of herself.” I had been thinking,  “She won't buy anything else.”
Such delicate fruit—one at a time they must be placed in the brown paper bags. I've gotten quick at it.  Then the Standard: “Couple of those are pretty hard yet; Leave 'em out overnight in that bag, and they'll be ready to eat... Anything else?”

     “No nothing more,” small shake of her head.

     Late afternoon at The Farmer's Night Market in Scranton-- the intense bustle of of the early day over –  with its frenzy of bills and change and bags; a new line of faces every sixty seconds, waiting to be waited on.  Questions, peering, turning the fruit to see if one side's as good as the other, and it always is as the Michaels sell only premium fruit at their stand, where I've been “City Help” for two years.

     “No, we won't have cider till after Labor Day when the Miltons come in.”  Funny, I'm starting to sound like a farmer – even know the apples by their different tastes, appearances, and order of ripeness.  There are summer apples, fall, and the winter keepers; and a smaller, rather homely variety, MacCowans, are the best for eating.  I like Cortlands myself.  They remind me of making pies with my mother – the smell of dough and apple skins – the little scavengers waiting for the cores

     The customers have thinned now, scurrying like loaded pack mules – off to their trunks and station wagons.  I can even read their minds!  They're planning dinners, canning pickles!  Roasting corn for cook-outs, planning novel ways to prepare the bounty.  I know these things.  I've been a customer for twenty years from mid-July till Thanksgiving.

     Wiping my sweaty forearms on my jeans, I try to get rid of the prickly-itch of peach fuzz – small price to pay for the afternoons's sweetness.  Then leaning back against some crates, I watch the edges of the canvas shelters flap – storm later?  This place, I was thinking, not much changed from the markets a hundred years ago-- the gathering of life to exchange itself.  We city folk – dependent, fume breathers and asphalt beaters.  Machine-like, silly with wealth or lack; paying, playing, dining out – driving our bad-*** cars toward some goal – never enough – just to wait for old age on the steps of “check day”  Not that farmers don't have their desperate years.  Weather can't be trusted, and there's always the hosts of gnawers, crawlers, and rotters – the unexpected that comes with living things whether cows or turnips.

     I've seen it here: life exchanging itself.  The early yellows and greens of lettuce, squash, beans, and berries; ripening to August corn, tomatoes, and feathery bunches of dill.  Then descent with cooler days to pears and apples, corn, and squash. Late September brings the Indian corn and pumpkins, cider, bushels of potatoes, frosted concord grapes, and zany gourds.

     With the return of Standard Time, come the bare bulbs that light the stands of produce.  At Ruth's the sign reads: “Order Your Capon Here.”  There are hams and roasts and sausage for stuffing.  The winter apples – “Stock up NOW!”  Ideas for holiday decorations; recipes exchanged.  Bushels and bushels for the canners!  And, one farmer sells those branches, heavy with scarlet winter berries for the city doors...  “We close the Wednesday before Thanksgiving”  I always buy those berries.

Good-byes are brisk and sweet – cold breath steams the air.  City and country marking their seasons –  their lives by the market.  The warm greetings of July, “So good to see you again!”
...Marking their lives.  Our children grow so much between the markets.  Generations exchange.  This co-op started eighty years ago, 1939.  For so long, it was the last and only, farmer-owned, open-air market in Pennsylvania.  

     Generations born; some pass or retire in the winter.  Nancy never seems any older than her smile.

     The vegetables always look the same – they're not.  They are the children of last year's veggies.  I suppose if I were to come here for the first time, I would think everything hereå has always been this way.  And, perhaps, I wouldn't be so wrong.  It really didn't seem so different or so long ago in late October when I first watched the farmers huddled around kerosene heaters in parkas, rubbing their hands together, drinking soup and coffee to warm them – stamping a little – pulling off their gloves, reluctant to handle the freezing change.

     “Can I help ya?”
     “Yes... Where's the best place to store potatoes for the winter?...I'll take that one...Yeah, You got it!”

     Dust rose from the spuds, tumbling from the basket to paper bag, and I propped them in my red wagon on one side of my infant daughter.  She was bundled in a plaid wool blanket and wedged between the corn and apples.  Her cheeks were pink with cold in the midst of orange, red and yellow – the colors of life exchanging itself.
Okay, closer to prose and dated a bit-- around 1993.  Published in ergo Magazine  and this week on Facebook.  Check in now and then.  Ya never know.  I share my thinking there.
L B Nov 2019
Did Jesus pass his hand over my wi fi?
and it's working again
Must have touched me too while here
as I'm starting to feel well
after a month of illness
skimming the rim of hell
It's bad when you can't sleep or eat
or care for anything
When real friends
become more real
Hold you up with their presence
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