Where our essence lives
lies our true fragility
as well as our strength.
Category: Poems
The Whole Day
The Bad Thing happened first thing in the morning
thereby coloring all the things that had happened since
all the things great and momentous as well
as those of no particular consequence
causing her to finally ask at the end of the day
what really had happened after all and
was it truly as important as all that
important enough to undermine a whole day
which could as far as she or anyone knew
have been her last?
To which she had to answer no.
A Tiny Break
A few hours’ break in the heat
flings windows open to birdsong
swooping swelling chorus of cicadas
chatter and hum of cricket and katydid
cheerful songs of summer missing from
our shuttered-up mechanically cooled houses
the challenge now being to somehow bring on the rain.
A Day
Amazing what small things
can nettle and irritate on a day
that starts as any day does
of course with promise the
promise of any sort of lovely
lively beloved wonder
devolving instead into a pall of gloom
thus changing hats I choose to fasten
upon the impressive magnitude
of such a bitter malaise arrived
from nowhere so robust routing all
my usual cheer in two or three
swift blows my oh my
I stand duly impressed!
Fearless Leaders
My boon companions lead off
into everywhere far and near
destinations of the heart
beyond the rock cairn
built by others ignoring
the sycamore’s pointing arm
clambering over the difficult
bluff knowing something raw and loose
seeing something I cannot
patiently leading on and on
without recompense.
Hot
It is hot.
Simmering searing
sweaty steamy
sticky icky
boiling broiling
roasty toasty
burning baking
spirit breaking
lazy making
tryingly fryingly
dyingly whyingly
hot.
A Wish For You
My wish for you is this:
a long held dream fulfilled
having been elucidated limned sung
the notes of it finely tuned
the colors mixed just so
your heart having known it
so deeply and for so long
dancing within you in
sheer ineluctable joy.
Patience
Queen Anne’s Lace does not seem
to mind the extreme heat or even
the lack of rain one tiny bit.
She stands perfectly erect with
exquisite bearing, her pretty white
head of lace held high and proud.
One can easily see why someone
thought to call her Queen.
The Great Aunt used to cut and dry
the flowers hung by their toes in the barn
for her large showy dried flower arrangements.
Oh she showed me all about it once but I
was too impatient ever to do a thing
that required all that long time of waiting.
That is not for me though I waited
nine months apiece for my three babies
my favorite projects of all.
Curly
Miles lies at my feet
my toes rub back and forth of
his curly silk head.
Ticks
Ah! just in time and not a second too soon
not a moment to lose and just in the nick
by the literal scruff of the neck the poison’s
applied to kill the army of ticks that latch
(oh the jaws that bite the claws that catch!)
onto my dogs and yes oh yes it’s true
I cannot deny it me, two-legged me, as well.
Och! I live this summer in paranoia
worried I might be out and about fine dining
nicely dressed clean coiffed made up
suddenly feeling the creepy crawling
on a leg an arm or worst of worst my face!
I’ve heard such stories, known of such things
and oh how easily it could happen in this hot
hot summer following a too warm winter
no harsh conditions to lay the beasts low
and me lacking the heart to ban my
darlings from my bed oh it could it could.
And after all, you know what they say,
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t
mean they’re not out to get you.
They are no phantasm and out to get me
they certainly are. They are.