That freshly planted bush
Dries in the afternoon sun
Filtering through an overgrown pear tree
Loaded with an unpicked harvest

Were he younger
He would climb the tree
Were he younger, he would
Enter the house and kiss
The woman
Who says she loves him

That freshly planted bush
Might not make it
Through the Fall
Wilting and dying before Winter

Were he younger
The plant would not die
Were he younger
What would the plant become

Written in 2018
The plant has survived

Turn out the lights
catch the night’s bequest

Train your eyes on the horizon
sunrise is approaching

Notice how blue is shading
from deep to pale

There are no shadows
Cast by the moon
Hiding behind the clouds

Sounds reverberate from
an airplane drifting
to a landing

Morning’s quiet
regains the stage

Until a Robin chirps
a wake-up call

Sunrise is approaching
advancing from east to west
lighting the sky

Rocks whiten to become obvious
against the pallid grass of winter
robbed of nutrition by the cold of January

No orb announces today
the sun is rising, although hidden
behind dense condensation

The orange orb of the sun
will not flood the skyline

The fever of night
has become the pale of the day

Thinking ahead
to those moments
generates anxiety and fear.

It feels like
I might open a box
of dire circumstances,
a basket of hassles,
for tomorrow
is so uncertain.

Similarly, the past
resembles a rug
stained with footprints
of mud, grit, and misdeeds
best described as guilt.

Self-reproach
obscures all awareness
of the present moment.

Peace exists;
it resides in my awareness
of now.

And in those moments together,
God concedes
that sadness and dark times
are assured.

These obligatory struggles,
though arduous to traverse,
are trials
that contain kernels of truth
for me to grasp

if I pay attention.

I sit in a trance as the morning sun sifts through the porch window.  Music from a Carolina wren taunts the world with a glorious tweet.

My wife invades my trance, “Look what Amazon brought me.”

My reply, “That’s nice, honey."

My eyes fixed on a headline, “Colleges are cautious about graduation speakers who might provoke the government!”

Freedom of speech, where have you gone?
Are you hiding in the canyons of the Appalachian Hills?
Concealed in the wheat fields of Kansas?

Will ICE deport the songbirds to Latin America
because they sound like freedom?

I place my hand on your shoulders.
They snap together
like an old-fashioned clothespin
on my grandmother’s clothesline.

I intruded upon your space.  
I arrived at a place
that enveloped you
in personal cellophane.

You don't touch.
You won't be touched.  
What pleasures you miss, such as,
feeling the roughness of a wrinkled ear.

You fail to feel a touch
as a finger glides along your cheek,
moving with a tenderness
that surpasses any kiss.

Frigid fear confines you,
isolating you from the human touch
that caresses and warms the soul.

You navigate life
like an unrefined stone
resting among precious gems,
made luminous by countless rubs.

She cannot grasp her shifting landscape,
With its muted morning lyrics
from both Robin and Cardinal.

What has dimmed today’s sunrise?
Her steps are shorter, her walk slower,
both signs she disregards
of her approaching twilight age.

She rests on her favorite bench
by the garden gate.
She finds no handle on the rusted bolt.

No entrance for her inspiring plod
among her realm of light and sound.

Sitting, she gathers courage,
new strength to
climb over the weathered fence.
Undaunted, she reaches
her limit. Her muscles feel lacking.

Accompanied by her mystic shadow self,
her playful muse mirrors what she feels: incapability.

Words appear nonsensical
Fact checks are becoming daily headlines.
Pure prevarications
Not mere vagueness
Bold untruths, shams
Two-faced attempts
To cheat to win
In a battle of ideas.
Better still, flooding
Air-waves, all media
With bogus pretext
That fend off
A battle
From ever being fought.

More than just falsification,
blatant fabrications!
Labeling truth a lie
Shut-downs instead of debate,
All communication aimed
to discredit, debunk, and divide.

* (back in the day we called this **** and bull)