When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass
The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind,
They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water;
And the sight of their white play among the grass
Is like a little robin’s song, winsome,
Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower
For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

I long for the baby to wander hither to me
Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,
So that she can stand on my knee
With her little bare feet in my hands,
Cool like syringa buds,
Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream;
I wish no happier one than to be laid
Beneath a cool syringa's scented shade,
Or wavy willow, by the running stream,
Brimful of moral, where the dragon-fly,
Wanders as careless and content as I.

Thanks for this fancy, insect king,
Of purple crest and filmy wing,
Who with indifference givest up
The water-lily's golden cup,
To come again and overlook
What I am writing in my book.
Believe me, most who read the line
Will read with hornier eyes than thine;
And yet their souls shall live for ever,
And thine drop dead into the river!
God pardon them, O insect king,
Who fancy so unjust a thing!

White Syringa’s fragrance gently sweet
A cup of tea and painted orange bench
With Fluff, a tabby cat, your gardening shoes
Stay longer, mother mine, how I love you.

Love Mary

Youth desires trysts
hot blood,
and new pursuers-
She desires more ease than work
not to seek but be sought after;
And I possess Her like the rest,
somehow I’ve had two lovers-
Yet both are not who I would have picked for myself,
both male and wildly immature...

I get myself into tight spots because of this desire,
and then wish just as quick to run from the admirer,
I want, all at once,
to be wanted and to be alone,
For Logic tells me
“you need none”
but my body wants Youth’s hot fun...

white, fragrant flowers
state flower of Idaho
syringa mock orange

Uneven.

The flag stones were uneven,
So on wet days there was always a chance of slipping .
Even more when it snowed.
In Summer the grass grew through
And daisies,
Occasionally a hollyhock took home
Outlandish in comparison.
Once cemented in place
By a loved father,
In a garden filled with roses
And a Syringa tree.

Love Mary xxxx