All Hallows’ Eve,
and my muse has gone astray.
When last seen, a bluebird,
most likely bat today.
I’ve written and deleted
a tome or two of late;
nothing’s any good —
I’ve just an addled pate.
Where are those perfect words
that say just what I mean?
Have they been scared away
by this looming Halloween?
I think it’s much more likely
my muse is somewhere stuck
among the fangs and broomsticks
of politics run amuck.
Thanks to photographer D.J. Berg,
and a salute to her complimentary Halloween bar.
We’ve climbed up Darwin’s ladder
of Natural Selection,
the bug and I together,
toward evolutionary perfection,
but I ponder our relative states:
who has the higher trajection,
the one with legs and wings,
or the one stuck in this election?
In a stroke of good luck,
my camera in hand,
a great photo op
came upon me unplanned.
“You’re a beauty indeed!”
I gushingly said.
“Oh, pshaw,” she replied,
and of course turned her head.
Such taunting reveals
the ignoble ruse:
you’ve morphed once again,
my intractable muse!
It’s a cold grey sky,
wintry overhead,
a rowdy autumn wind
has left me just a shred,
so what do I do
without my coat of red?
I hold out all my arms
and wear some birds instead.
My house naps quiet
behind the tree;
the world passes by
obliviously.
The grandeur of
my life within,
curtained by
the daily din,
cannot be guessed
by passersby
who see my house
as small and shy.
My stemmed fine art
goes undetected,
like ruby rose window,
unexpected.
A splendid secret:
who could know
my little house
is Chenonceau?
In stillness
the leaves,
in silence
the shadows,
maybe a bug,
burrowing,
crackles,
sighs,
tummy-scratches,
sleeps.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
and to Fort Harrison State Park, Indianapolis.
When all is done
and all is said,
none can imagine
such a red
as autumn conjures
from summer’s green
in abracadabra
of a Merlin unseen.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
and to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, IN.
A driven, fevered
bee be he,
zigging, zagging
drunkenly;
mead of autumn,
sweet and heady,
makes his skinny legs
unsteady,
wobbily resolved
in year’s decline
to buzz each flower
an Auld Lang Syne.
Is the pond a kaleidoscope,
tumbling, soulless,
into accidental beauty,
or does it
in wistful deliberation
dream itself in Giverny?
If ever a bird harrumphed
and cast a glowering eye,
this fellow of coal feather
is that imprecatory guy,
in body language eloquent,
proclaiming clear disdain
for the species that presumes
to call him a birdbrain.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
and, of course, to the crow.
Oddments 