Flora and Fauna, the sisters of Season
Of Spring and of Summer
Allow now our drummer
To drum out the beat
For the feet of the sisters
To glide and to creep
Like the encroaching sleep
Which may perch on your shoulder if we cannot keep you awake
And on the edge of your seat, sir.

Now the former, sweet Flora, will finger the flute
While the other continues to glide and to slide
Like a sequined Venetian harlequin bride;
And now Fauna will mimic the movements of bird and of beast
As she graces the work of our landscape artiste
And all is completely unfeasible
Completely lacks reason
We guarantee.

Presently
In the eye of the beholder
Sweet Flora seemingly draws from the aether a lyre
And with flourishing fingers she plucks from the heavens
A song of the seasons, a pagan ode to Pan!


Behold! No aid of hoops, no strings
The vestal-******-harlot sisters sing
Of beautiful Persephone
And with unseen damselfly wings
Ascend from mediocrity
All melody forgotten
All the drums create cacophony
And you will find serenity in chaotic monotony
Now let this climaxing crescendo banish all your sorrowing!

No more that light; no more that sacred realm
Life’s door was dappled gloam; now all is black.
A man of wax with saintly, hollow eyes
Devoid of sin, devoid of love and light
That golden room is lost – you can’t turn back.
Now love has lost its lustre - lust lost joy
And coy eyes turn to watch the empty man
Struck by eternal beauty, and condemned
To haunt the broken world of mortal men;
And shrilling wind caresses empty hand.

you’ve swept me away
in your rivers,
completely.

do you know you steal my breath?
I can’t help it, I surrender
to you, so
surround me, encompass me,
cover me with your skin,
your flesh and kisses;

love me, I know you can.
love me,

for just a while, and
I’ll lead you,
follow you,

until you find
what you are looking for.

I am yours to break.

and if you ever want
to forget me for a while,
to love me no longer -
that is okay,

for you've loved me once,

and that is enough.

5

breaks away from it family
to inspect my wet leg
teasing a shiny blonde hair
lit by an evening Baltic sun,
its wings said to vibrate at 2,000
times per second, if

I reach to touch this
momentarily curious creature
it vaults toward the back lit
protective river reed sweet grass
or water lilies at 100 times the speed of one
length of its jeweled body,

Two species in short vernal contact
and how to compare us:
Zygoptera have lived 250 years,
possess keen 360 degree vision
eat mosquitos, never had a thought, yet
who is to say my kind are better
in the scheme of things?

In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds

Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual

My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary

Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments

I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path

The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux

As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate

Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift

Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary

Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode

And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles

blue-tailed damselfly
moves back and forth in the air -
sultry afternoon.

breaks away from it family
to inspect my wet leg
teasing a shiny blonde hair
lit by an evening Baltic sun,
its wings said to vibrate at 2,000
times per second, if

I reach to touch this
momentarily curious creature
it vaults toward the back lit
protective river reed sweet grass
or water lilies at 100 times the speed of one
length of its jeweled body,

Two species in short vernal contact
and how to compare us:
Zygoptera have lived 250 years,
possess keen 360 degree vision
eat mosquitos, never had a thought, yet
who is to say my kind are better
in the scheme of things?

My precious sweet potato pie, my darling little damselfly,
your life is still a lullaby, and I love you more than life so I
kiss chubby fingers pinched in play, make root beer floats,
chase bees away, but even I might break your heart someday.

I leave the warmth of the feast
Out into the pleasant night air
A cat walks in the garden
Quietly atop a stone wall
It's eyes reflect in torchlight
Like two carved emeralds
I watch from the stone bench
As he snags a damselfly from the air
Pinning it to the mossy stone

Move about with bended knees
Eight eyes, but can you see?
Casting line and tying knots
For lunch a meager flea
Daybreak bears your sovereign knack
Of pinning in a row
Dangling tiny diamonds
To adorn your bungalow
You ponder many buzzing bugs
Of iridescent jade
And wrapping them in blankets
Made of milkweed pod brocade
Sedated little damselfly
No, never getting loose
You're served this evening as first course
A  succulent chartreuse

-1-
Consider the Paradoxical Frog,
so named because it is several times smaller
than its p h e n o m e n a l l y huge tadpole.
(But then, look at people,
whose achievements often fail to match
the promise they once showed.)

-2-
The Second law of Thermodynamics
Out of winter, spring,
out of spring, summer,
then autumn, winter,
and out of winter, spring,
always the same.
Out of the bud, growth,
out of the flower, seed,
out of death, life.
Entropy always increases.

-3-
Once you were within my reach.
Suddenly you became a
g l i t
  t e r
    i n g
damselfly.
Just wait, I thought, I can change too.
Why did I have to turn into a frog?

Cascading , omnipotent life water of Cherokee and Creek ,forged in granite , red clay, confident tributary and commensal partner of damselfly , alligator turtle and heron ..
Mature , altruistic bounty brought unto industrious native people , turbulent tributary of the Piedmont .. Mother of the fertile southern crescent !.......

Pink hyacinth blooms,
atop floating green leaves,
the dark green bullfrog sits idly,
occasionally announcing his presence.

Fullmoon light illuminates,
the blue water pond imitates
a giant silver mirror,
reflecting the sky.

A single disturbance,
created by a drinking damselfly,
ripples the night's reflection,
like paradoxes through time.

I sit and watch being still,
until the hum approaches,
I have been found by the mosquitos,
time to retreat.