#rhododendron
There she laid down her wearied head
To rest one final time under the shade
‘O the wiry willow
Beneath, her thoughts spun webs of distant times past
Where honeysuckle wrapped tendrils round
The rugged walnut
Smells of various mountain flowers after a fresh rain
Accompanied the familiar tune of birds singing
An ode to the swaying oaks
A soft breeze warmed the chill of biting winter's cold
Sending shivers down her frail frame
Skeletal like the barren birch
She blinked in time to barking angry squirrels
Displeased with the lack of fruit
Left by the poor pawpaw
Vision, already blurred by cataract, began to fade
As the mountain consumed the setting sun
The light filtered by forlorn firs
It was time.
Long had she waited to join those that had gone before
Patient to be reunited with her love long lost
During the spring of blooming dogwood
Distant, she could see him, strong and proud
With effort she reached out to her beloved
A mighty hickory
Exhaling, she breathed her last.
After her life, Diana, goddess of the forest
Let grow a grove of various mountain trees
Surrounding a single rhododendron
Her life, a monument to the nature she loved.
Apr 28
Apr 28, 2026 at 2:07 PM UTC
The rain is falling, coalescing now
Off the roof onto new blooms.
Dusk slips in with its indigo shroud
And I watch it kiss the purple,
Of the Rhododendron’s earliest flower,
Plucking away Azalea’s last veil,
Hiding her into a bower,
Where summer never ends
And the rain falls when it will;
I would have this all year instead of an end
Where these soft mists know nothing of a chill
But heat and rain,
Sun and shower.
I can still hear raindrops drumming
On a Chinese rebel’s tin roof,
Outside Jakarta and the red guard coming,
We could lapse into hypnosis,
Rapt senses gently humming.
Despite our temperate flowers and leaves
That droop under the deluge.
Their color seems to strengthen as they grieve,
And they cluster, seeking refuge,
Yet from our New England loggia,
A stream turns them darker, a humid green.
And in the slowly deepening dusk,
The trees’ heads toss, agitated,
Like elegant women whose gowns have cost
A tidy sum and now are saturated.
Their full, green plumage lost.
I love the mockingbirds’ changing cries,
Announcing from to squeal to carillon.
Cardinals’ song change from pleasure to pain
Flashing coats of taupe to vermilion.
As the evening slowly dies.
It ends and begins with summer, summer,
Soundless footsteps in the rain.
A prismatic wakening from slumber,
A season with no name.
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 10:06 AM UTC
The sky’s a light carnelian’s shade
and, as the brightness starts to fade,
from carnelian to carmine he turns, too-
soft to vivid tones of the hue.
Looks into the ‘windows to my soul,’
(‘windows to one’s soul’ he called them)
The intensity nearly swallows me whole-
his windows a pair of solitary gems.
Eyes the colour that fire should be,
a fury to turn flames green with envy.
So as carnelian turns to carmine
and the heavens light up with his glow,
a firefly’s brightness is overshadowed,
but the yellow is whitened down in snow
A lone, saphhired rhododendron in full bloom
unaware of its death in a pluck so soon
The furious ball of rage sets
and us (three!) need to return
-a lingering gaze for a moment too long,
cheeks of crimson and burn!
For too long have we tarried,
our hours have wasted the day
Find no longer a reason
nor any excuse to stay
Peer over the edge a last time
(indecision, in control)
At the vast expanse of cerulean, sublime
(pause to contemplate my goal)
Tucks the blooming rhod’ between a lock and an ear,
breathes, “it looks prettier still here,”
for another second holds ( ) near
and in parting’s ‘sweet sorrow’ starts to disappear
A gunshot echoing, a resounding sound,
as he turns away from the mead’.
His body slowly hits the ground,
and I know I’ve killed him dead.
For the first time, a lamenting tear’s grace
rolls down one side of my face
and all I see is red.
A gunshot, a second time, lying in bed,
brow, hair, pillow- all soaked in red.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 1:47 PM UTC