Author: Kay Foley

Saturday morning I have many plans and ideas
conflicting with the desire to stay right here
in this state of perfect contentment having 
watched the sun rise unceremoniously as it always 
does without fail without recompense without motive
its utter equanimity a heroic model
for us moody humans.

I wander the world 
my eyes wide open
ready for whatever 
small slice of thing
will slip into the 
pocket of my heart.

Zaftig, meaning plump, round, voluptuous, 
is a word that delights my mouth. 
Voluptuous being another.  
Also peduncle
bamboozled
hoodwinked
flummoxed
overboard
plummeted.
I know a fellow who likes the word ointment.
Azimuth is excellent.
Crunch and jumble and rummage, too.
On the other hand, I dislike pedagogy very much.
And manure.  And, let’s be honest, ointment.
Rat terrier sounds so unpleasant but
Rats! as an expletive, perfect.
Expletive, come to think of it, is pleasing.
As well as expedition and helix.
I adore the word penultimate
but dislike ultimatum.
Interloper is a favorite, as is 
unsavory, and used together, as in
unsavory-looking interloper, well, 
we’ve struck gold, haven’t we?
Plinth, paramour and pendulum
are each lovely in their own ways but
buttress and unguent, never.
Pithy is brilliant but when all is said 
and done, if either of us is hoping for such 
a conclusion to this poem, I am afraid 
it will not be forthcoming (nice word).

Fallen leaves decorate the path
in drifts after last night’s rain
though to gaze from the bluff
one would never count them missing.
I wander with my dogs loving
with my whole heart the pretty
solo fall of one leaf
the soft tap of its landing
that seems to say
I was born, I lived and here I rest.

Oh for a boat
and a captain to sail it
that I might climb the mast
and love the vast
sea around me
and sleep at night
on a rocking deck
with too many stars
to wish upon 
in the black sky.

My mother’s birthday today but she has gone
on and won’t be asked to blow out candles
or open gifts of things she couldn’t possibly need.
I like to think she is light and free now
tumbling end over end giggling and merry
with her sister (the favorite) and
possibly my great aunt (our favorite) 
wearing the heavenly equivalent of
pointy-toed harlequin shoes breathing in
the heady fragrance of roses.

Autumn afternoon
Dying wasps zoom drunkenly
in the yellow light.

Quiet Saturday morning 
and I have met obligations
fulfilled the wishes of Others
kept up my end of a few bargains
relieved my mind of several burdens.
Others stand in line of course and always
but I feel freer today to traipse and wander
while meeting the expectations of my own spirit
that obligation of honoring the world and its creatures.
The dying leaves, falling walnuts, the turkey vultures
and the migrating geese, the rippling water of the creek,
this cloudless sky, the waving cottonwood leaves, even
the dry autumn air that has been given to us this season,
warm in the day, crisp and cool at night, lulling me and All
into the idea that this–this time of perfectly luscious days–is
our birthright, Just The Way It Is And Will Be Forevermore
simply because we, somehow, having done nothing, deserve it.
Hah!

Yellow leaves of my two walnut trees
are scattering themselves higgledy piggledy
rolling and pirouetting as they fall.
Their descent in autumn is to me
their prettiest aspect, so dear, 
so balletic, so elegant.
And I do not mind that they gather
in soft drifts on my deck and 
porch even immediately I have swept,
another and again resting one upon
the other making their gentle 
acquaintance Hello!  Why hello! 
innocent as babies whose tender 
hearts are still wide open.