Death the copper penny, grief the rust.
Death the grain standing beside the road,
Death the rider, death the mare;
Grief the road.
Death the Greek invention. Thanatos.
Rather than that, those
stalks and seedpods brought to the mill
which, being destroyed
find purpose.

Grief the eater.

Cow itch circle the hills
Picking up speed, what a nuisance:
My body became numb: the torturous seeds
The native never seem move: by the “muckleheads”.
The itch and the sand flies: a duel team

I was the victim: The vice was on my back
Under house arrest, a meltdown I was so trap
It was time to leave all of the seedpods behind
Fever, malaise, drenching sweats and chills:

I remember once I told a fan, about my kind of therapy
My morning’s session, of cleansing the mind
A blast of my past: the uneven dots on my temple walls
Am I making a break through, nope I never had closure,

The groom wore red, on his special day.
I was the one that wore velvety black,
but I celebrated their reunion with a tall glass of
Ca’ del Bosco Cuvée Prestige Brut, Franciacorta DOCG.
Wine:

I’m far too clever to be taken likely:
So, I  let  my poetry writing do its own disciplined

**"If you can’t be a poet, be the poem. – David Carradine"

The overhang saves my parking place
on warm nights, too dark for walking.
Green and alive, it juts out above the brick,
a shapely mess of twig and vine.

By noon, I unlock my doors to find
that it has littered my car with seedpods.

Each with five projections:
finger-like, with digits,
like your hands, like your fingers;
sliding off my body as I pull away.

In moments,
I am half-way home
and my car is clean.

Open and Shut

There are those of us
in the human community
walking around enclosed
in self-constructed shells,
shielding themselves
from random stones flung
or darts purposely aimed to hurt.

Taking no chances,
even their soft underbellies
wear secure armor
against any possible onslaught.
Nothing comes in,
nothing goes out.

Others walking among us
are tender as children
still full of innocent trust
like delicate blossoms fully opened,
redolent with sweet nectar
destined for honey,
and seedpods freely given up
on gentle Spring breezes
carrying away bits of future beauty
to distant fields of wildflowers,
blissfully ignorant
of  tomorrow's killing frost.
Everything comes in,
everything goes out.

Eileen Auger
2007 or thereabouts

Where does the red fern grow?
Where hearts bleed into the deep, deep earth?
An old dog lying on a new gravestone
Red forest, new growth
Nature's sunscreen

Something dies - so another begins
Layers of life upon death
Decay is the way of all things
Of all things
Wildfires come, burning bright
Burning red in the dead of night
Seedpods open in the blaze

Something dies and the forest feasts
Something becomes a part of something so much bigger
A forest is built on layers of decay
Old growth and new
Life and death, hand in hand
Where does the red fern grow? Where does the red fern grow?