Memorial Day

beach picnic photo-
a bit of sand
in every smile

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

-A.E.Housman
Now generally I am not drawn to rhyming poems. But the idea of this one is quite charming- spending a life traipsing around looking for cherry blossoms to gape at. "Fifty springs are little room" struck a chord.

Crossroads

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rains
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

~Joyce Sutphen

first piano lesson
dandelion seeds float
by the window

quiet afternoon-
the thump of a magnolia
on the car roof

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

~Earl Mac Rauch

Late September

Behind each garage a ladder
sleeps in the leaves, its hands
folded across its lean belly.
There are hundreds of them
in each town, and more
sleeping by haystacks and barns
out in the country---tough old
day laborers, seasoned and wheezy,
drunk on the weather,
sleeping outside with the crickets.

~ted kooser

D moon

purple half moon-
new songs from
the neighbor's guitar

Spring breeze
a jacaranda unloading
blossom by blossom

outside

after brunch-
quiet enough
to hear a hummingbird

those brits

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

~Noel Coward

times change

afternoon sun-
the dust gathering
on his guitar

Variation On The Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

~Margaret Atwood

fruit

stiff knees
--she picks one last strawberry
before twilight

Strawberry Festival time. Must go.

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air--
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings;
a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music--like the rain pelting the trees--
like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds--
A white cross
Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings
Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart,
how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

~Mary Oliver

kigo

jacaranda blossoms
walking the dog
in flip-flops

The jacaranda have indeed bloomed in this part of the world, too. Warmer weather to come. Hence the flip flops.

excerpt

There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool's-gold, a layman's magic that even my mother might have relished. As I work, I clear my mind, breathing deeply. The windows are open, and the through-draft would be cold if it were not for the heat of the stoves, the copper pans, the rising vapor from the melting couverture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rain forest.

~From Chocolat, Joanne Harris

summer

longer days
-the weight
of a watermelon

window

spring morning-
contrails compete
among the walnut leaves

The walnut tree outside my window was bare two months ago. Now, the leaves are so thick that you can barely see the sky.

Air Empathy

On the red-eye from Seattle, a two year-old
in the seat behind me screeches

his little guts out. Instead of dreaming
of stuffing a wad of duct tape

into his mouth, I envy him, how he lets
his pain hang out. I wish I too could drill

a pipeline into the fields of ache, tap
a howl. How long would I need to sob

before the lady beside me dropped
her fashion rag, dipped a palm

into the puddle of me? How many
squeals before another passenger

joined in? Soon the stewardess hunched
over the drink cart, the pilot gushing

into the controls, the entire plane, an arrow
of grief, quivering through the sky.

~Jeffrey McDaniel

truck-stop diner
the waitress tells me
to wear sunscreen