Should I be raking leaves; they’re piling up?
My yard sleeps beneath a saddle-brown snow
complete with two/foot drifts snug around shrubs.
The paths and spent flowers seem content though,
resting without pressure to be well-groomed.
My eyes tell me this without judgment of
their own; leaving the decision for me.
Taking my cue from nature, I chose to
lie fallow and rest beneath a rich snow.
Your history flows freely:
a gently bubbling shower massage;
effervescent revelations of sweetness,
moist longings and caustic bitterness.
They twirl and coil,
these memories of your considerable passion.
My acceptance of one entices another
and another and with each a glance
from gleaming eyes, demure and measuring,
wondering at my salient calm.
I wonder: how close can I linger,
how long can I sooth and be soothed
before my dusty wings explode in flame?
Along the bank of a singing creek
drawn crouching beneath tangled laurel
to a sandy cove by a sweet stench,
I found a fawn, awhile dead, untouched,
inches from the water’s edge.
Her pliant, serene/cervine body lay melting
molecule by molecule returning ascending
and her soul held wake above wafting
among lustrous white laurel blossoms.
Spiraling up and up with scratching speed,
the squirrels pursued each other around
the rough barked pine faster than my eyes could shift.
I lost them in white sky glare and tangled
needle mass; raucously harsh, screeching calls,
marked them before their leap to a neighbor oak.
The smaller fell, spread-eagle in air;
missed! I thought, but spasms of tail/tick-tock
and tendon/claw snagged a limb-tip easing
his plummeting fall to stronger growth.
Then, daring pursuit, the parent raced on,
intent on schooling squirrel ways without respite;
tree to tree with chattering leaps of faith.
From limb to power line the parent jumped
beckoning the smaller to follow fast; the pupil,
leaping, slipped, then swung upright and froze:
the taut wire of risk lay suddenly clear
in the vastness of white opened air.
Father/mother? chastised hesitance with
warnings of dark omnipresent beast,
and ran the unforgiving wire quickly away.
The rodent/child, doubt crushed, wavered and fell,
clawing apathetic air to the street
where he lay and twice twitched, perhaps with thoughts
of soft/leaf nest and of drinking water.
Grackle
Brazen hundreds flaunt
their stuff, screaming their presence;
conquering the trees.
•
Bluejay
Unsympathetic;
reigning, brassy-blue diva
of the canopy.
•
Bluebird
The blue of God’s eyes;
with cheek-blushed breast, you flutter
in your dainty bath.
•
Crow
Black hole against soft
sky blue as boy-baby blue;
harsh as a night scream.
•
Mourning Dove
Flushed from brush in twos;
rattling chortles of wings lift
them to lowest limbs.
They call in soft glee.
Mistaken for sad laments,
their calls haunt our days.
Skeptical of bliss;
we refuse to hear pure joy
of a gleeful heart.
My mind can not comprehend a meaning.
Surely, you merely, poke fun;
content to tease less agile minds
……………..sliding words along,
a string of pearls nicely strung,
glossed with an aura of interrelated-import,
advancing only themselves across the page.
The meter, the sound, the flow is sweet
but what do you…. so delightfully…… decline to say?
Do you at night giggling safely in your bed,
berate yourself for naughtiness,
or…..crying, fear your efforts wanting?
Listen…there!…. Listen. Are you repeating what you hear?
Still…I feel the spongy dead-stop of my swing
of blade against the harden broom-sedge tuft.
Higher, I reasoned, taking another swipe
with a sling-blade taller than my six years.
Golden grass flowed with the blow yielding only
dry flotsam with straw scented disappointment.
•
So strange….memories lingering half-centuries;
others just a day, a moment, or never really made.
My first remembered ambition: to lay low
that field, expansive then, for no particular reason
other than to see it felled…..to smell accomplishment.
Stubborn grasses or allergies brought tears
and abandonment of blade and pride; both
flung down hard…..then dreams for years self-thwarted.
•
Now….walking aware, overstepping briars,
through fields of desiccated, swishing grasses;
hand, palm down flat, I caress resilient sedge tops.
My blade, bright with sharpen glints, shouldered.
I’m ready to swing with practiced ease but
only for purpose and with reverence for grasses.
Separation is the state of final
acknowledgement of the absolute.
Existing in relation to all, you cannot
complete yourself but we will be here,
remembering your name, speaking humbly,
offering colorful ribbons and tears.
•
Sacrifice is the act, the act that ends.
Who made the choice is not the point to argue;
you were chosen or made the choice yourself.
Whether the cause was just or not or moot,
something was required and you were loss.
Now, you have that knowing that eludes us.
•
Placated, soothed by ritualistic words,
we read hollow text and embarrassed by
uncouth grief and the shriek of loss we pray,
speaking of the Ultimate Sacrifice;
we whisper the name of that demigod.
Here….we will never have that knowing.
•
Guilt is the word, the word that tells,
leaving no room for elaboration.
We wrap and place your bones with no dreams in
The Cave of the Devoured Prolifics.
On occasion, we hear their soft clacking;
lighting short candles, we appease with chants.
They climbed the steps one behind the other:
the mother in front clutching the rail,
daughter behind watching her mother’s feet;
easing each wary step by simple will.
Similar print dresses passed the knees hid
partially, overly muscular legs,
but the plainness of their faces needed
no paint; from pores and creases slandered as
unsightly or crude, benevolence glowed,
turning heads, almost in deference, drawn
to look and nod….even the rude and vain.
As the daughter signed her in, the mother
with a glance choose me to sit beside. Blessed;
I followed her lead. We talked of children
and having cared for our mothers in need.
Battered hand’s skin still tough, cracked, told of toil,
perhaps by choice, likely by circumstance,
but not one complaint against her life passed
full, unadorned lips, only sweetness and
praise of goodness and kindness of others.
Her name was called and with daughters’ help she
rose smiling, touching my hand in farewell.
I had glimpsed in her full moon face answers
for questions I could never even ask.
It seems they revel in being reviled;
those who want to be hated will always
relish the atrocious, seek our disgust.
That is why they provoke us to attack;
our outrage caresses their ecstasy.
Some call them animals but the only
creatures demeaned is the wolf and the fowl.
Belated Words 