Love is something
other people ❤️ do

I stood in the February snow
the freezing sleet
no boots
no coat
Steam wafting off my fury

My father read the lie
two hundred yards away
and walking toward me

So I owned it
told it
With a snarl
Without a flinch
Both knowing

I held my ground before him
and wore the red of his hand
on my face for a week

A blue jay
Cries in deep background
of robin's qweedle day
A breeze moves the curtains slightly sun-
light scrawls
it's shadows
Soothing brighter
Lolling on a cushion
Late afternoon
of mourning dove
calls
to it's mate
meet her
on the edge of sleep

I need

...but have been too long alone
untouched by desire
the presumption of love
in joints of dust –the lame of lust

So...

Unseen
Years creep by
Silent, numb

No one remembers
who I was

Raising my eyes
to the window—
–a flock of sparrows rise as one
into a gray sky
of mind

Beauty left by the back door of day
unnoticed in fading light

A dull ache
is all

The years add up
But you never truly forget  
Just cover it up
with leaves, some brush
an old sheet or blanket
A drive
a new route around
Sometimes an old box in a closet
or under a bed work fine
to hide the time

until the winds of seasons change
bare it all again

..and there's never any tissues around

For my cousin, Chris Goldrick

Lacing my skates
after walking two miles
in girl-strictured delight
Mom's stories of Sonja Henie--
No, not ever

Lacing my skates
with  snow-ball pompoms
felt skirt
and nylon tights
Cute little hat with matching scarf
My thighs and fingers
already freezing
icy burn
from miles on foot

to get there
the lake where--

I must get out
I must get OUT!

Knowing what
to expect from my body
the quick-twitch of muscle
Could always sense
specific--
gravity of water    
at 22 degrees

Desiring to feel
the motion between ice and steel
Read speed's vibrations through my body
The brain registers relation
to weather's effect
Tell of velocity
possibility of fall
Feel the slash of the blades beneath me
Throw my weight sideways, sudden
to hear that furious hiss
An object in motion tending, dire
to stay in motion

Threatening to stay there
always
in its heights-- of speed
away--

from the crowds of skaters
swirling distant in the lights

Seeking instead
the farthest reaches of Porter Lake
speed and speed and more
to overcome
inertia
of what it is to become
undone

at the outer edges, of humanity
A force  
centrifugal unto myself

Avoiding

Pregnant and slow
with years and babes....

The best
must be broken and tamed
of what it takes to stay free

catching the edges with every stride
catching my toe in the quick
180
spray of frost
to the sudden still

Listen to the frigid chill

and the heave of my breath
tumbling into evidence

Gliding
Once

Forever--

on, into darkness
of woods on frozen water

The wildness of it all

So infatuated with flight
so full of grace

I forgot Sonja

The moon rose
from her seat in the treetops
and applauded

A recluse has no reason
No effect, nor place to go
No place to catch the eye
Nor show 
that I am ****
effortless....
in baggie jeans and ragged sweatshirt  
Beauty is for the forest
the ocean and the sky
I am an odd and solitary bird of brown
Only
beautiful in nature's eye

Reached over, grabbed my phone
to read
He had died
not having seen her--
His daughter
with her eyes black like his
Night in hair and features
He could never deny
Their voices
both carved
from ballad and timbre of oak

Ireland
hung
harps
in the beauty
between them

Lost with you
Lost without you

Not Quite Ourselves

In whispers
“Cousin Tommy--  
is passing among us--”
a photo

… at my father's funeral
We, dressed up to honor Dad
Spread the pall along his coffin

“The last thing you can do
for your father”
Mom whispered
to her daughters

There is never a last thing
that women do

...Then to her--
the folded flag
__

Not quite ourselves --
that grief
that echos across decades
Memory is handed round--
that photo
of my Cousin Tommy
__

His eyes gasp!
Grasp!
at me
desperate
in the sudden need for my knowing

that photo--

That this was all....

I would ever know of

you

In that instant
you pass on--

nothing--

but fear

You, paint for war like Mohawks
or something...
not quite yourselves

You guys
must've laughed
like hysterical fools
Half-shaving your heads
Painting each other's faces

And I don't remember
of course
Never met you

Not in my lifetime
_

That War
Not mine!
__

Germany
behind
the lines
of you
long since dead

at 18 years in '45

But I saw the photo!
RIP
the cord!
to slow descent!

Not quite yourself

Your head thrown back
against the terminal velocity
of your life
A war dance

that I had yet to know...
...your face reaches out
across the decades

for one last plea

“Tell them, Lizzy
Tell them 'bout me!”

Not quite myself

The ocean through an opened window
Frontier between all that's known
of here
and sleep
riding out the waves as they come

A gull cries in passing

Waves sating themselves
in the womb of the earth
kissing the neck of Bride's Brook
Her seaweed streaming hair
in wind of tides
The moon's pull to release
coaxing spent and tender moans--

the farthest reach of sighs

October's--First Fire

The dark comes early now
...comes in on the wind
with defeated day

Old Jacket
goes out for an armful
the fire wood again
for firewood, firewood
the firewood again

This comfortable routine
like well-worn ***

Scraping ash into pan
Wetting and rubbing the window clean
Nesting the kindling
Setting the smaller
and the waiting logs
Striking a match
to the tinder
to tender the flame

Settling back
flushed
with the warmth of wine
purring cat on lap and
...the firewood...the firewood
the firewood again

One of those days
that cannot decide itself
Sun?
Clouds?
Blue?
Soft breeze?

Oh hell!
Just threaten rain again already!
Not as if we haven't seen enough of that

Once more-- with feeling--
for those in the back!

On Days Like Today

On days
When the thrush curls his song
among the buds unfurling
Lilacs float their fragrance
Past the trees, among the bees, between the roofs
Only distance makes it bearable
to be

...so called
Spring
in the chimes of breeze
Bent by the force of life
in disbelief

of its always
leaving

behind

the apogee
Now, past--

The fatal
wound of spring

If that night could remember
it would call him back
to our Chinese restaurant
to fried rice and steaming tea
to our winter refuge of tile and cushions
60s retro black and white
Chrome legs of lacquered tables
with its mural of
our Great Wall

...winding, distant, wonder

If the snow hadn't muffled all
but our voices
we would not be—

so alone

Only I
felt his arm take its chance
around my shoulder
Guiding warmth
as good excuse as any
to touch

Two miles on foot
An arc in time
In lace of white
to hide— what might....

Below my window
“Good Night”
not enough
for troubadour
singing, pleading, stumbling...

(I worry about his long way home)

...and hardly notice...

How gently Time joins Snow
as if they cannot bare
instead, conspire
Decide the crystals
Send the flakes to sift over him

This loss needs snow
to blur his face
to fade from view....

This— tender let-down from the sky
As only snow can do...

Cover with beauty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o6zMPLcXZ8

Smokey the Bear tried
to warn us
not to play with fire
nor matches
Never any carelessness
so near the flames
A Bunsen's burner
licks the glass
cesium
rubidium

I listened
till the dare
undid the bear
Consumed us
with its hunger
for the science
and the gases
instability
of it

Flicked us out the window
of a sunny day
Cricket dry
the grass
Knee deep in *** butts
in litter
by the underpass

Flames trespass
explode beyond us

She may walk through crowds
unseen
An advantage of her age
poking through products  
at her own distracted speed
Feeling fruit or sniffing soap
Reading labels
fine print through two pair of glasses
turning slightly
hoping no one sees...
how gone it's getting....

She may lean on cart at check-out
just shy of your usual...
Old
who ask for double bags
Nope, she will not slow the line that way
Remembering work
assesses pain
shifting weight to other leg
to spare an aching knee

Not one for counting desperate change
Not arguing every item on receipt
Not fumbling coupons
nor writing checks

...will not slow the line...

reluctant to let go of youth
Remembering exhaustion's day
she will not slow the line that way--
Fiddles with smart phone
(Yes, she knows how!)
to pass the time
She fumbles through her purse--
God only knows
what “old folks” look for
Probably glasses, tissues, gum,
or
"Where the hell's my keys!"

Stopping by a news rack
on the way out
Is she waiting for a cab?
Who cares!
Outta way, she stops to read
The New York Times, WaPo, Journal
Thee chapters of a novel
Outside their pay-walls
The mind beneath the woolen cap
is at it
grazing once again, for free
Where she often likes to feed--
her curiosity
No one sees her watching
from the inside out
and the corner of her eye

But what to do about that cat litter?
or ½ and ½
on highest shelves?
she simply cannot reach....

Always some tall good-lookin' guy around
to flatter
his size
looking for dog kibble, “big game snacks” or beer

She plays
the old lady card so well
...and somehow
gets what she needs

I think about you...
Route 84
How many times we traveled
to get home

...by the side of the road
that winter day
fumbling with your phones
as we hold one
to my father's ear
So he could hear
Good-byes and Love yous
in your voices
too far away....
to drive
in time

for one last...
your voices
in his ear...his mind

Felt so good!
Wind and the highway!
Did anyone see me?
...beautiful with the hope of love?
Neck getting sunburned
Hair ripping sunlight
as that semi pressed and passed us
standin’ still as a school bus
And we signaled ‘im for the horn
pulling our fists down on the air
Ya know, we were celebrating!
his response in kind!

Sweaty kids snoozed
stuck to naugahide
nodding under ball caps
Slumped over souvenirs

Happiness marooned in the third seat

"****** of crows"
Yes, that too~
The dysmorphia of an aging body
struggling to try on dresses
struggling for some semblance
of age-appropriate beauty
has-seen-a-better-day

Mother-of-the-bride
captured
for a photo
hugged by lycra
Arthritis crying from every joint

More like carcass-by-the-road

March roared and rained and ripped
itself from winter
a wounded lion

Last seen following the snowbirds

Andi Balise combined a half page of a short story, “Thanks Going Without Saying” by Liz Balise, with half a page of an essay by Klee, “On Modern Art”, from a book called Modern Artists on Art, 10 Unabridged Essays, edited by Robert L. Herbert. With some small edits and line-breaks comes this miracle of a poem:

Painting a Function Different

I peek out over the railing of reality’s magic
Beyond the porch-floor
Minerva hangs her wash
making the invisible visible
Eighty two and three quarters deaf
she doesn’t notice  
But this is, in fact, reality
Has always been this way—
Bent and bird-like existence  
Balanced on two twigs—always busy—

Her task, is the ******* of space  
Cutting coupons, crushing aluminum cans, ironing
The three phenomena which I must....

Things no one notices—
climbing on the abstract surface of a picture
Switching the curtains  
God! I wish from the infinity of space..she wouldn’t…!

It figures that—
Rusty, her cat, is weaving in fortune or misfortune  
I try to fix them—
Her ankles now
And she curses at accidental quality
from the corner of her mouth
which has only one form
Clothespin or cigarette?  
Long johns and animals and men in heaven
and bureau scarf and sheets—all, non-infinite deities
surround us translucent, contained
  
I decide what to get for her birthday—

We are good friends
through painting a function different

For me?
Predestined necessity.

Minerva?
forgets her manners
and eats like a survivor—

Thanks going without saying.

An old woman
stirs
her coffee
with swirling steam
that opens idle eyes
lets loose a stream
of thought....
She finds a place to plop
Bites in
to stale biscuit of the day
(yup, still has her teeth ok)
Takes a sip
dissolving it

--the bitter olive leaves
and ashes of a King*

“Peace
in her day”

Bent
Near to breaking
by her burden
of fruit, swollen with seed
In that thrashing by wind
Bearing down on the sun
in her labor—
of  Need
to bear
the pain
to bring
her yield
to his hands—
her harvest
of warm juicy softness


Gone—
the upright
reach of untouchable spring
When stems, stern and smooth
wore a lace-beaded bodice of bloom
of coral chiffon
First leaves
a scarf
with a fringe of lime green
wrapping her gifted and lean
to the buzzing

She was lighter than dew
to the amateur insects
smeared with her

Her only accessory--
a robin
They had left
as evidence
they had ravaged
its song


Now broken and leaking
more damage endured  
Ripe fruit in rough hands
He leans against limbs
by his weight sternly pressed  
so suffused in the fragrance
of peach intoxicants
which he will have--

He is lost to his lust
He is forcing his need
into another year's beauty

asserting his claim over and over again
of that lost and ancient bounty

To all the families of this loss: POEM
______

People I don't know
except for watching basketball
with a friend who loved the sport
The squealing of sneakers on floorboards
That airborne grace of long- limbs...
go on forever... stopped only
for that photo
His daughter's head, against his shoulder....

Did I touch you as I left?
That night of beer and music
Almost tipsy,
laughing good-byes

Backing into blindly
I felt an arm... a moment
guide me
before I all but fall
against you
Knew that warmth
of mass was male

You exhale
I sense your being--
behind
Amused
By accidental intimacy
I come unglued
By your flirtatious
catch of eyes
in lowered light
By faint fragrance
of whatever it is
you've drunk or used
to put yourself together

Turning
guarded
Apologize
glancing down


Women always look, though
however briefly

No one so shy
as moonlight on waterlilies
of a blue-black night



         Personne si timide
         au clair de lune sur les nénuphars
         Ce soir, bleu-noir

Snow plows beeping
Reverse whine and scrape
Swirling blizzard of waking—Strange
in this place where
boredom banks both snow and cold
Are my eyes running?
After all
there's a stiff wind, and it’s 18 below....

Pictures and phone calls make up my family
Stray cats eat suet I leave for the birds
who make names for themselves in sunlit bushes
Love these more than...

my hearse of a job

where that ice cream vat—slipped
smashed
my sodden dish-doin’

fingers    against     sink

Pain mounts its insurrection!
Ambushed!
from every direction
Fainting in steam
Squeezing my eyes    
till the blood shuts my brain-failing
Down my wrist
all over
the front of this rubber apron....

Someone hates me somewhere

Someone found me more tenacious
than a road-**** skunk!

I eat    I drink    I work    I sleep
between these vicious icicles  


-18F = -28 C

Commit
Three small tokens of remembrance
wrapped in copper, silver, gold
Oddly shaped that qualifies
as curious
They would like to see your dreams open
on Mondays
in the morning
I tell them
spring is only
painted upon waking
Bend the air for us
they plead
I tell her
how words come and go
Ideas the stuff of stumbled over
Strewn without a thought
to where they land
Tangled in the sheets
of unmade distance
to the bathroom
and back to bed
I want to linger here amidst
the ephemera
littered
Loss of words

...gone flat
Just fizzed out of me
But I do write sometimes....

Not tonight—
Only frantic sparrows roosting
Heavy overlap of clouds

I read these words here tonight and cried into their truth.
I will not apologize for the truth or the cry of a heart.
Doing the right thing sometimes, takes everything...sometimes more than I got, and I would never blame someone for doing somewhat less.

Please read Emily here:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1606848/the-problem-with-poets/

I was looking for the suitcase
one of those work trips
Staying at a sterile Ramada
TV blaring through fiber walls

Down the hall a door slams on sleep
My heart leaps like a squirrel
onto a New Jersey highway at rush hour

So much for –  “Have a pleasant stay.”

I lay thinking about road-****
alive-- then incongruous –  dead

Awake, listening to trucks
log their roar of rush
Then, whine to the distance – away

Awake, till I can smell
perfume of the maid's cart
masking evidence of people

Awake, hearing
twitter of Spanish
Smallish women in turquoise uniforms
long dark ponytails
cleaning rooms
like stalls in a cattle barn
Their faces make me long for home
somewhere –  
I am always longing
and never seem to be....

Anyway, I was looking for that suitcase
Found her dolls lying on it
and wondered when they got there
A day when I was working, no doubt

She must've looked at them
decided they were lost
in silly-sleep
beneath the basketball poster
beside the boom box
Sleeping with her childhood
in the cellar where....
_

Spring comes like a longing –  
for a moment
for a home

They were darling there –  
yellow romper, plaid sun-suit –

Same clothes as the day –

They, last saw her play....

Pulling off my scarf
letting it drape like a resignation
across the back of a chair
The sun is setting
the room is dim
and almost orange –  and is
sometimes lonely
in its loss of day

I think of you now –  

and then

We were walking with our arms around each other

Always...

through the Boston Common
The air drizzled
with late-winter
melts
the cobbles
wet
The sounds of our steps
go on –  

Forever....

I turn to hang my coat

Night replaces you again
__


1-29-18

Sleeping well
Loneliness is a warm quilt
to wrap in
to dream of little things
purring
They will outlive me
but cannot fill me

Time has outrun me
on its way
into the lives of others
and their companions

...their sunsets over ocean
their candlelight
their whispers
their tender touching

I don't know how it happened
but like the moon wrapped
in her sparkling quilt of dark

loneliness became
me....

Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note

of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car

the limp head
of a cat’s prey

sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines

baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge

The slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake

…and the world is vacant for a moment

Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us

Stops the throbs that herald life

Raking Under Forsythia

Who knows what stops the heart of a song
I take note

of tiny thud—
robin in the wheel well of my car

the limp head
of a cat’s prey

Sigh of wings
defrocked by power lines

Baby starling’s fledgling flight
falling short of a pond’s edge

That slate morsel unearthed
by the tines of my rake

…and the world is vacant for a moment

Grief ***** a womb of air
but how it lives— I cannot say
Upended creature of us

Stops the throbs that herald life

“To touch great loneliness
is to be lonely”
or so they think

“Such things rub off in ruin”
so they say

Or does fear think at all?

Avoidance of approval's wince
Reading shadows wrong

as startled, leaping splotches
scatter-flat
Then drool down walls
in wakeful pools
Relief dissolved
in wee-hours black

Missing life at the threat....

As if there were somewhere else to be!

The knowing of it all would be the curse
Except for carving little hopes from realish dreams

Where once the mourning woman felt
the treasured, fearless touch of one
who laid his sorrow 'cross her knees

Forgetting all-- but love

Nothing more to do when all is lost
But watch the birds and buds emerge
by swollen streams

But speak your mind
But wait and see

Pinto?

No, not the wild-spirited, color-splotched mare
with mane streaming like flames-thrown
behind in the wind
Taking desert inclines
with scuffing hooves on rock
catching her balance in mesquite
curbing?
The sage, dust
All
that nature throws in its pathway to knowledge
toward treachery of crosswalks?

“P-l-e-a-s-e  don't slow down!
Stop signs--?
”No!
Just keep going!
Don't slow down now!”

“They'll hear us coming
3 blocks away!”

Pinto?
Clogged carburetor--?
No one much-mentioned
rear-end inferno reputation??
A mere twinge in my signature
Woman-without-a-clue

“Hey, it runs, right?
Gets where we're goin'?”

Kids duck in back seat
so as not to be seen
In the cloud of smoke
We make our approach

Hiss Spitter, Belch, Pop
and--

BANG!

--Like a gunshot

Kids take cover
on street, in backseat
duck down
so not to be noticed...

“Oh Ma!  
MA!!!
Not right here!
Farther down!”

...so not to be seen
...by friends that matter...
in this ride
from hell!
Backfiring Beast--

“Friends”
skitter away
from what will emerge from the smoke and fumes
of high-risk-situation

Kids spill out through jammed door
to unexpected accolades
onto equality's curb
of laughter  
Public school's
wake of exhaust and relief

I drive mercifully away


Start of another school day

"The  Spirit Likes to Dress Up...

...to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is —

so it enters us —"

The sun is going down
I'm just lying here
Letting it

...In honor of my red maple, cut down yesterday
and one from my childhood
________

My father had the tree cut down
Drought finished it... after a couple years of blight

A hundred seasons
Spreading sweetness
commanding grace

Mom took pictures of it
coming down
Neighbors with lawn chairs
Ring-side seats
for the aerial gymnastics
this circus of snarling saws
Dad joked about selling selling tickets
backyard picnics-- a Red Sox game

While silent photos watch
she surrenders her shadows
to the terms of light
stumps, dust
stages of death
the good-bye of a friend

What must that Yard look like now?
A shadeless glaring lot

Excuse a few silly moments to mourn a tree
to remember lying on flagstone
after sweeping them off
(They must have circled her trunk once
kept finding more as I worked with a broom)
building a sweat, a fort, my private place
under the tree that offered shelter

My father worked too
Trimming, raking, mowing, cursing her keys...
Maple keys...
that when you stamped
had that satisfying snap
of plastic bubble packing

Says he's gonna buy a new one
...sterile, hybrid, keyless kind
...so I was tired and lay down to watch
white clouds float in the bluest sky
I can remember...
...daydreams...interrupted... Air Raid Warning...
..Noon...
Then clouds again
...and I was with them

She talked in leaf language
and had much to tell
When her song part came, I slept somehow...
Since then years of singing in my head

At the end of the world
when the young man left
I lay on a hammock under her

When music turned...Savage
Hers?   The same...
presence... yearning...rooted... direction

this letter says. “She's fallen”
a slab of trunk for family members
A neighbor will have firewood for years

Her memorial?
...in my front room
to set coffee on...
to lay magazines....

But I will find the rings that belong to us!
Cut her song from tangled voices
in anxious traffic
on clearer days— when clouds won't float
but grasp, instead
a sky attempting a silvery-blue
...the cooler shades of memory

From the lawn chairs—groans, apology!
“ Not many trees like that one!”

Not many lives have majesty....

I used to think the wind was born in her arms
...then spread to all the other trees

Keep trying to remember what she said...
but there's only her hush

...and the rings that belong to us

A river collects debris and silt along its way
the leavings, limbs, the trash-- all of it
trinkets of its travels
deposits delta of another day

It does not choose its wanderings, its depth--  
nor decides the sculpture of its bed
whose contours lend it
force and transitory power--

Its learning journey
ceaseless....

Change is in its element

A good storm will force its rise
into someone you do not recognize
and maybe wish you never met

The Lehigh is chaffing
at the shoulders of her banks
Swollen
with mood of mud
brown and flat and far too fast

She tore those young girls
from their rafts
Decorated the trees
of a midstream island with them
hanging on like the leaves and silt
once did

Their cries swallowed
as she roared past
harvesting souls with clinging hands

Chosen
to be victim
Chosen
for a reason
to be spared

The right winter
for dope and ice
for walks along the river route
home

The right winter
for arctic pin-***** wind
holes in boots
turquoise dress coat
far too thin
for walks along the river

But The Merrimack couldn’t find her way
when fabric moguls migrated south
Fascinated by nylon nasties
they traded their silks and cottons
for those petro-polyesterdays

While she—
could no more manufacture life
than mint their money
So, they blamed her
Pronounced her—“Dead”
Decried her “*****”

Now—
She wanders sadly under bridges
stopping to eddy in an overhang of birches
In dank canals, I found her sleeping
angered only at the falls

Poor outcast!
with current edge she splinters light
from cities sadder still
retching her oily stench 
        past Plum Island
into the sea— into me

What’re a few warm tears
falling from someplace on a bridge
to the icy waters of the Merrimack?
Rivers get lost in the ocean don’t they?

Let them find each other there

Make No Promises; Take No Vows
Mean what you say
Say what you mean
Leave room
for the failing
for forgiving

The comp for compassion
goes a long way
or so they say--
'cross the heavens even
burning dross all the way

We are not what we were
nor what we seem
Leave room for the failing
for what we will be

Post-Paradisal
bush-whack of living
For what lies between

Let your yes be yes
and your no---no, and

Know

anything beyond that....

falls short...
or for sure will be
of the failing

I used to run in Nay Aug Park
A natural spot in Scranton
On the road below my feet
Was painted two feet tall
"Free Bobby Sands"
My heart bounced off the words
To know
how he died
Didn't know I could care
that much for anything
I was to learn
Learn how to care
about despair

You returned from the harvest?
I uncovered your feet
to the night's cold
As I was told
to lie by them
in the chill?
To hope?

Yet another mistake?

A miscommunication?
An error in our ways?
You are the wrong man?
The wrong time?
Yet again?
Can this be true?

In my old age?

What now
will I do?

A winged seed just took to wind
and landed on my lap
like hope and babies--  
I imagine
I have never had

like memories
of walking home from school in May

Stunned by perfect curl of comma
by design
Veined paper
thin
with spine
of strength attached
to guide its flight
of swirling fertile
to the ground
of mind

To love--
the tan and winged snow
descending
to the heights of trees

on both sides of this moment

a child
in a future forest

A ball of blue fell from the sky
to indifferent grass

I fly into panic
along with Henny Penny
trying to save it
Because I've always known

she wasn't crazy

Never sure who's boss between us
He comes when called
several minutes later...

Blinking sweetly
smiling as only cats can
Golden, half-moons of sunlit bliss
watch fat yellow-jacket
marginally motivated

The hunt cannot compare
to the soft grass with its tender clover
a  full belly
and the meeter-of-all-needs nearby

But the quick jitter-dance
of an easy moth
sends the tiger
to the jungle of forsythia
Gleaming, stalking stripes
Alternating white of paws in precise approach
The prey?  Too quick
The predator?  Too old and lazy
prefers attention
Lumbers slowly back
lolling against coffee cup
Enough....

On needles of white pine
a secret lion has lain down

waiting only for the lamb