It’s there
in spectral glow
an orb of lustrous being
something that we know
yet just beyond our seeing
elusive and alluring
it hovers in a mist
with silhouette and shadow
slyly obstructionist.
Still writers strain and grope
— it really is absurd —
for the Holy Grail beclouded:
that precise
exact
right word.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives for this remarkable image of the writer’s brain.
I wish I could send you, dear reader, a bit of this morning. We are due for yet another day of rain (have mercy!), but right now the rain is merely a hint, heavy in the air. It is barely day, but there is enough light to make the budding trees crisp against a bland sky. They aren’t moving. The pond is steady glass. The air is early-spring warm and utterly still, as though afraid if it breathed it would cease to be.
I can hear a mourning dove and some kind of chirpy thing, both chanting their Lauds, each in its own way. I can also hear the rainwater draining into the pond, a gurgling antiphonal to the birdsong. There is an occasional car which sounds far away. Mostly I am swathed in quiet. I feel like an intruder, but I stay, also trying not to breathe.
Have you ever wanted to put a moment in your pocket so you could pull it out again when you need it?
Through granite clouds
a puny light sneaks out
to play in puddles
taunting the hapless sun.
Shawl-like
the rain wraps around my home
thick folds of patter
fuzzy to the ear
softly woven
of fine merino splash.
Face to the wind
I look ahead
goodbye to the old
now the new instead.
It’s a digital thing
unlike my old grand
a sign of the time
like the gnarl of my hand.
But I admit I’m befuddled
in this alien realm:
am I at a piano
or the Enterprise helm?
One crocus
in the winter grass
with saffron voice
sings out
resonant
in its aloneness.
In thanks for lone voices. It’s never easy to bloom alone.
May all marchers be safe today.
What the heck is THAT?!
my silver-tongued exclamation
as I blinked my suburbanite eyes
in recoiling disapprobation.
Except for its long flat tail
it looked like a waterlogged rat
frowning at me as to say
I’m too lazy for this habitat.
Into each cove
spring snow must fall
and the air must blur
with ghostly pall
the gardener must mutter
shovel and slosh
while egret and duck
in tiny galosh
point and laugh
with manners quite loose
at the hat with earflaps
on the head of a goose.
The snow bedecks the deck
the swing and windowsill
and expletives explode
from every daffodil.
With buds of ice and baby leaves
the seasons wage their war
winter’s grip
in silvery drip
yields to seed and spore.
Happy freezing first day of spring, dear reader!
Oddments 