A yellow notice on the gate with bold letterhead states
Noxious **** Commission and then, in small­er red print, declares: 
Demand Notice to Remove Thistle.

This n­otice is a sudden smack behind the noggin. 
Bringing attention to­ a purple, spiky blossom 
on top of an orb wound tightly around a­ ball of seeds, 
swaying in the breeze and heeding this question:­
What did you do?

To make the County use its bureaucratic might ­
and declare thistle plants a blight, a public nuisance 
worthy o­f persecution.  And any resistance will cause 
an appearance befo­re a judge who'll levy 
fines and imprisonment.
What did you do?
­
Shock begins to wane and reason filters into the brain;
this thistle, that goats devour like its a treat,
it explodes into a cotton suite that birds 
use to build a soft nest and squirrels 
a cozy den for all their kin.

Is this order just about the plants by the gate,
or does it include plants used by bees,
or the plants that help pollinate veggies?  
Or the pretty blue thistle splashing color
in an otherwise rather dull foliage -
do those count too?

The notice drifts off into the finer print of legalese
using words like must, subject to, and other decrees
and then it ends with this call to arms - Declare War On Thistle!
But whose side am I on?  And, when I am in jail,
will I get my thistle tea?

O, Prescient Ewe
That knows where to stand
Avoids ambivalent hand

That bore this world
Of life’s command
To bear its high demand

O, Precocious Hen
Knows when not to lay
A life down in the hay

A babe unborn,
Uncracked, unraised
Unknown to her dismay

O, Prodigal Mare
Beware not to sprain
Or you will bear the strain

Though not for long
You’ll be for this plain
Where retired mounts are lain

O, Impassioned Pig
Whose fattening
Welcomes a fatter thing

Wash away
The amber glaze
Chase not the dangling

O, Prescient Ewe
Return to me
What is it you see?

Be sure it is
What’s to come
Not what you wish it be.

In mainland meadows, flowers tempt,
Yet spurn those animals they tease,
Except caprificating bees.  
Here, whatever’s edible’s unkempt.  

There is an isle more fortunate
Where nettles sow chrysanthemums,
And farming isn’t wearisome,  
And where what tempts must satiate.

Discredit not the busy honey bee,
or the hedgehog that makes the grasses stir
The old owl that makes it's nest in the fir
Admire the deer pacing the woods with glee!
No bard does justice to the roaring sea,
no sculptor the grace of a wild flower
Or the nurturing of a rain shower,
or majesty of an ancient oak tree

The beauty of Nature, a peaceful sight
Like swans taking flight in the rose sunset
Deep deserts where small foxes show no fear
of man, and to feel a thunderstorm's might
All these wondrous things and more can be met
on this miracle, blue-green biosphere

The fog loses purchase
on the window
and, dying, wicks
ashy vapor's slick scatter
to gated green-brown.
Morning comes again
in fractioned crooks
of snow declining
into fat eggs of rain.
The fog is a colossus,
ravels with dragging step,
before retiring itself
above oak branchlets.  
The sun wraps away
in gray, as if stolen.  
Nativity of cloud.
I'm telling you this:
everything is possible.

All the women in my life
They- I cannot deny-
Have shown me love unknown
To men who vainly roam

Their words of dew and sway
Bring rise to dawn and day
Their hymns and fabrics blown
From their sylvan loam

They bear me in their arms
Where sorrow breeds no harm
And turn my mouth to crow
Of harsh and fleeting home

In time and hastened feet
Approaching skin's defeat
I recollect and row
Through times of sky and foam

See the eyes, through jagged trees
Humbly calling out to thee
And the damp eagle plea
Downy arms falling free

As breath makes no qualms
With the levity of psalm
And the soot between palms
Lies still in fearful calm

Orion’s sprightly pace
Shrouds the cratered face
As pearls fall without trace
Miss the ocean’s embrace

Neon ghosts surround
The orphaned mobile sounds
As empty fertile ground
Now bitter and profound

Within malignance, the smell of stale night
As blue and then amber engulfs the sight

In the waist high soy fields
We laugh like choking dogs
On the image of the hand that yields
So we worship in restless monologues

In the ice cold bite of the frozen lake
We encounter the spirit of naught
Naught which has given, naught that we will take
And the holler seems farther with every thought

I am a soul sick woman in the body of a child
A child with formlessness untoward
I wish to run as fast as the stallions, bucking wild
But I’m stuck here in the yard

When you push your eyes to the horizon
Do you feel that stirring, longing, yearning
Deep and tender heartless feeling
Leaves the mind inside the body reeling
When you tip your face up to the endless sun
Do you feel that wars inside we only narrowly won
The civil conflict, the trenches, blood in buckets subdued
The maladapted, anachronistic, bad attitude
I am forgiven for all my double-hearted shame
Tell me, if you can, what is my name

We could have a kind of farm,
I suggest,
With a little shop attached,
We could make jam and lemon curd,
Maybe chutney or,
Other things in little packaged jars,
I could bake things,
You could sell paintings there too,
We would only grow vegetables,
And fruit,
We would cook things with love,
Labour the earth with love,
Live together in love,
I feel sure that I could work the soil,
I have always felt an uncertain hard need in my bones,
To give something back to Mother Nature,
And I grew up in the country,
So I feel sure I would acclimatise,
But it is only a fantasy,
A sort of a story,
Even though it does sound nice either way.