Unwelcome storms break this day
one additional jangling snag
in a day already laden with burdens.
My equanimity ekes out.
Author: Kay Foley
Shut the House
Fragrance of honeysuckle drifts through the window
on a just barely cool breeze
Starlings make their grackling comments
The day will be hot and I
I will be shutting up the house
wishing I had held and preserved
a cup of this early morning freshness.
You and Me
Pack us up
Take us away
To Zanzibar
or Timbuktu
over the Zuider Zee.
Pack us up
Take us away
Over the hills
Whereverywhere
Not even I can say.
Bring us home
where we will be
happy as larks
lucky as dogs
Ever always you and me.
Merry May
The merry month of May dawns cloudy and rain soaked.
I love the turn of a calendar page the newness
the fresh start the who knows what of it
as time continues on spinning itself out
all shimmery full of promise and hope
another month neatly packed away
a new one shaking out its folds and wrinkles
ready for the party that might be called May.
Or June. Or July. One can always hope.
Bad Mood
Black bleak brackish mood
muddy wet sloppy sopping mood
griping gravelly grunting rumbling growl of a mood
cross cranky crotchety crabby curmudgeonly
old lady in knee-high stockings mood.
Grrrrrrrr.
Household Help
Where’s the butler, my cook,
the dreamy-eyed gardener?
Breakfast tray is late, teacup is empty,
newly bought plants droop on the stoop.
Mail lies unopened, bills want paying,
washing has piled up, the house smells of dog!
Where is my efficient secretary, the maid,
seamstress, my beautiful laundrette?
All gone missing, chauffeur as well,
resigned their posts, taken off the day.
I appear left to my own devices.
Well, it’s toast and pillows and tub
for me as I can see no one is here
to meet my needs.
My Hands
My hands’ fine lines surprise me somehow
tonight though I’ve studied them every day for
over sixty years, know them like the back of my . . . .
What once were a plump little girl’s hands
smooth as ever could be
are now those of a middle-aged woman.
It seems absurd to wonder how this happened
but at the same time impossible not to.
Searching for a Book
What of a book that might suit my fancy
where is it and/or how can I find it
does anyone know, anyone at all?
One and one again goes rejected by me
of late for one very good reason or another.
Insipid. Jarringly violent. Too terribly sad.
I read Insipid for over one hundred pages
in the naive hope that this bland new lover
might after all become The One. But no.
Two incidents only (which if only could
be erased from my brain, rotting dead
things plucked from my flower garden
and given a decent burial) led me to cast off
Jarringly Violent though the writing is
entertaining, clever, stunning in places
and the female protagonist brave.
Terribly Sad might have a chance
though I wonder why. Why must I
love characters through the curtain
of abuse heaped upon them by All
in their sad sad fictitious lives?
So I search for another golden book
to add to my (long) list of beloveds.
I am really not so horribly hard to please.
Wordplay
This I
ensconced thusly
half recumbent
apropos of nothing
accoutrement abandoned
bamboozled by no one
shall hitherto
sally forth
posthaste
forthwith
hither and yon
over hill and dale
insouciant jaunty buoyant
with tremendous
aplomb.
Sixty Things
Said I’d do sixty new things in my sixtieth year
and now with eight months gone the claim has
become a burden as I dull as dull cannot even
imagine any sixty things new to me or rather
sixty in my price range. But oh!
If money were no object!
Parasailing, transAtlantic cruise
painting class in Paris, cooking in Italy
yoga in India, samba in Spain.
Sleep in a treehouse, a lighthouse
rent a convertible, drive the coastal highway
Fashion Week in New York, in Paris.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnaval in Brazil
raft right through the Grand Canyon
Thai food in Thailand, Vietnamese in Vietnam
sleep on the beach at Cape Cod, no, Tahiti
frolic nude on beaches, clothed on dance floors.
Alternatively here I am watching two
goldfinches zoom and dart amidst the redbuds
having what looks like the time of their lives.