A hole in one! The noble beast
wants no one else to clutch it,
but the ball’s all sog,
there’s no way, dog,
that I would even touch it!
This is Andie, the newest addition to the Lucky Dog Society. She has not yet figured out that I do not do dog slobber, and she thinks I actually WANT that ball. Not a chance.
This was me
and this was you,
our wings be-fuzzed,
mysterious, new.
Tipping, toppling,
learning where
we stopped and started,
unaware
of cliffs and quicksand,
Pandora’s box,
we braved the world
of thorns and rocks.
Or so we thought. The really brave
were those close by
who hovered and watched
with wary eye,
letting us learn
from life’s tough classes
even if we fell
on our little
ummm
grasses.
Tomorrow is Mothers’ Day here; I am not a fan. I think it’s become a national day of panic. But that does not mean I don’t value mothering. I absolutely do. There are many who mother even if they’ve never given birth, and I salute every one.
Please pardon the quality of the photo, dear reader. You probably, and rightly, guessed that I was hunched down behind Venetian blinds muttering to that baby to HOLD STILL. He didn’t. Mother Goose (so to speak) did not cast a benign eye on me.
Where are the toes
with which we hold
when we reach, teetering,
for the tender goaled?
When life twangs
our bearings like rubber band
and we, poor spitballs,
clawless in foot and hand,
hover on the verge of shot
yet, refusing to be denied,
become the squirrel,
wind and gravity defied,
and clutch that feeble twig,
how do we dare?
Does the soul have claws
that hold us there?
It seems appropriate, dear reader, to end Poetry Month with a question since I always start it with a question: what is poetry? Still scratching my head on that one.
The tortoise and the hare
have nothing on this pair.
The smugger the daunt,
the cheerier the taunt:
“Ya snooze, ya lose, mon frère!”
Yes, dear reader, I heard it myself.
That’s exactly what the little guy said as he churned by.
The pensive dog,
drowsed by talk,
took her thoughts
on wooded walk,
contemplative
and solitary,
past springtime’s
ruffled luminary.
The daffodils sighed
as she passed by,
looked after her
with solicitous eye.
This, dear reader, is Miss Janey Pickles. I’m told she is named for a literary figure beloved by my daughter-in-law. Some people speak of their grand-dogs; I am not one of those people. Janey Pickles is not my grand-dog even though she belongs to my daughter-in-law and my son. Or they belong to her. Whichever. The amazing thing about Janey Pickles is that sometimes she’s awake.
The art of the photo:
part timing, part luck.
Thus my photo
of a diving duck.
“Hello! I must be going!”
a tune too rarely heard,
wafted through the air
from waddling squatty bird.
Crestfallen and bewildered,
the pup, his tail a-droop,
wondered if he’d erred
in mention of “Duck Soup.”
The huffy Madame Mallard,
like all good critic quackers,
made it known that she prefers
the classic “Animal Crackers.”
With a salute to Marx Brothers movies:
“Animal Crackers” (1930)
“Duck Soup” (1933)
(What else would a dog and duck talk about?)
A tourist stopped in Mallardville,
to see what might be there,
sidled up to locals
in competing savoir faire.
The Monsieurs sized each other up
in manly bivouac
while Madame Mallard plainly
didn’t seem to give a quack.
A robin skims the frosty grass,
stopping, starting, stopping;
the housefinch goes a-nesting,
pecking, pulling, hopping.
The chickadee, bright eye on me,
zigzags in spritely play;
the sun, at rise and setting,
is chirped along its way.
As winter’s bony grip
reluctantly lets go,
songbirds return a-twitter
in growing crescendo.
Far away in birddom
the elders meet en masse,
solemn, introspective,
with all due gravitas.
Somber-visaged sages,
exchanging thought and word,
they ponder and deliberate
what it means to be a bird.
The enigma of horizon,
the mystery of skies
inform their academia
as they Socratize.
Music quite eludes them
but they don’t think it wrong
that others ponder being
in transiency of song.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
And, of course, to the pelicans.
It’s our mutual motto,
my furry confrère,
the words that we live by:
“it’s here somewhere.”
Oddments 