Aesop says be like the ant,
eschew grasshopper ways:
the ant puts by and plans ahead,
grasshoppers waste their days.
The ants in frantic harvest
prepare for winter’s grey.
The grasshopper, all moony,
ponders the green of today;
in foolery like writing
does he his muse pursue;
he yearns to be a poet
and use words like “eschew.”
Many more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
I have no idea how he got the grasshopper to pose like this.
Sic transit…
Yes, this is the zinnia you met in my last post.
This unpleasant-looking fellow
appears to think that he
has right of way and title
to private property.
I am sure I heard harrumph!
as I dared to hover near;
suspiciously he eyed me
with arrogant bug leer.
“My mentor was a Klingon”
(how absurdly braggadocious)
“who considered me outstanding,
in point of fact, precocious.”
“Cloaking device engaged!”
he proclaimed as he lifted and veered
to a multi-green leafy lilac
and forthwith disappeared.
Those Olympians of digestion,
with their steely eating power,
the rabbits made me go next door
to borrow a cup of flower.
My next-door neighbor’s floofy Rose of Sharon.
The rabbits can’t reach these.
No doubt they will evolve soon with giraffe necks.
Gnoshing in the marsh
beneath the summer skies,
smoked fish the blue plate special
to heron’s gulped surprise.
From ashen cloud an eagle’s
gravelly croak is heard:
“Can the presidential seal
be changed to coughing bird?”
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,
braving the smoke from the west
hovering over Virginia.
Microbially small against the clouds,
a fearless speck of bird
whose fury I could feel
jetted in short,
tense,
jabbing
zig-zag;
the massive hawk,
wide-winged
sky stalker,
bucked,
twisted,
dodged.
I held my breath,
afraid, almost,
to think that
what matters
is not our size
but what we defend.
Street art has found a place
in cultural domain;
the spider looks upon it
with the master’s cold disdain.
His webby muse inspires
despite the hours of tedium
to pattern and to form
with gossamer as medium.
In gallery of flowerpots
the moon and sun elide,
performatively joined
on thinnest thready slide.
By night the moon plucks lightly
each string in placid rondo;
by day a somersaulting sun
cavorts in bright glissando.
Known only to the artist
where spinnings stir and start,
sufficient to the self
is ephemera of the art.
So the noiseless patient spider,
in retreat of sweet alyssum,
abjures the common cult
of crass commercialism.
With apologies and thanks to Walt Whitman’s
“A Noiseless Patient Spider.”
Life always was a head-scratcher, but recently more than usual.
For one thing, WordPress got all weird on my computer. No way could I get into it last week. Eventually it came back but my security program blasted bright red warnings about dangerous and suspicious connections. On WordPress?
I got a new phone from AT&T. Free. Sorry, folks, but I don’t believe anything is free. It’s a flip-top to replace the one that they’re making obsolete. I still haven’t found the strings but I know they’re attached. I took the plunge and started to read the blurbs that came with it. Chapter One: Safety.
OK, so my Mensa invitation didn’t really get lost in the mail, but still I’m smart enough to know that if you’re going to write instructional materials you should tell your reader what your abbreviations mean before page 20. That aside, I learned that I shouldn’t paint or bend my phone, and that no part of the human body should come too close to the antenna, which is inside. Do I put the phone in the kitchen and then go to the living room and yell at it?
You know the rabbits have destroyed most of my flowers. Now I’ve lost the tomatoes. I looked at the poor tomato plants and just shook my head. Since when do rabbits eat tomato plants?
I stood in the vast echo chamber of Lowe’s lumber department asking myself the eternal question: where’s the person who can tell me the difference between quarter-round and shoe molding?
I think there are times in life when we don’t even want the answers any more. A rocking chair and glass of wine will do. Rocking chair optional.
The eye of the hare,
what jaundice hue,
therein hinted
a whole world view,
carrot-tinted,
gluttonous gleam,
taking measure
in pound and ream,
spying greens
and petals fair —
what was planted
no longer there.
A lesson life
has clearly taught:
know when your efforts
come to naught;
to try again is
laudable habit,
but not when competing
with the rabbit.
Let it go,
it wasn’t to be;
the garden this year
is plant cemetery.
Alas, dear reader, it seems not to be a year for a garden. Moss roses, daisies, marigolds, gauras, zinnias, lantana, even spiny rudbeckia — chomped. Dill? Parsley? In my dreams! What with the rabbits devouring my flowers and the cicadas dive-bombing me, I think this might be the summer I stay inside and clean my house. OK, you’re right: that’s not likely. But still I’m steamed.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg and to sculptor Jürgen Goetz, and to the rabbit that posed for Dürer’s drawing, thereby giving Goetz inspiration for his sculpture, glowering near Dürer’s house in Nürnberg. The gnarled hand under the hare is obviously the defeated gardener.
What count today?
How many swings and swerves?
Is her language getting colorful?
Are we getting on her nerves?
Did you see my body slam?
Mid-forehead, perfect aim!
Well, I got her on her ear —
I love this summer game!
What sport her dodge and dip,
her crazed and darting eyes,
her twitch at our chorale
of razors in the skies.
I’ll race you to her head!
Come on! I double-dare!
The winner is the one
who gets tangled in her hair!
