Stirred by ducks
the black of winter water
shimmies to silver.
Unaware
(maybe)
they paddle on
turning pond
to Rorschach.
Category Archives: Animals
November 8.19
The colors of autumn astound me
a Beethoven’s Ninth for my eyes.
But despite all the many I’ve seen
there is ever the joy of surprise.
Picture the brave if arthritic photographer, dear reader, falling over the furniture trying to get a shot of this little guy without scaring him off. If he’d hold still, the camera wouldn’t focus. If the camera behaved, he flitted away. At great cost to my person and the order (such as it is) in my house, I got him! It doesn’t take much to make me feel like Clyde Beatty.
September 23.19
Little woolly overcoat
inching up my wall,
do you think you’re coming in
to cozy up for fall?
Yes, I know that winter comes
with autumn equinox,
but I can’t accommodate
your hundred shoes and socks.
As if the trees and the stores weren’t reminder enough, come now the woollies to tell us that summer sets and autumn rises. I wish for all of us, dear reader, a season to catch our collective breath in the colors and new air that will come. May the din of the absurd be muffled, if only for a while.
September 15.19
September night
thick-aired, damp,
heavy with weight of day,
slow as prayer
raises the moon
ruddy gold
soon ice white
but,
for this brief Now
of autumn rite,
glowing fermata
over a thousand crickets
piping.
September 7.19
Gather ye pollen
while ye may
in warm and bright
September day.
Tender zest,
to flower,
to seed —
thus does garden
(and life)
proceed.
With apologies to Robert Herrick.
September 5.19
There is yearning
in the looking up.
The unattainable,
marbled with secrets,
lures.
The gulls
in swooping arabesque
mock me with their indifference.
But still I reach.
There is that dream —
you know the one? —
Alone,
I soar,
scared and joyful,
lifted not by wings
but
(I think)
by self.
Thanks to photographer S.W. Berg for this beautiful capture.
August 3.19
When life in the pond
becomes dissolutional
it’s time to brisk up
with morning constitutional.
