December 7.21: Coping

Who said the moon is cheese?

Why, anyone can see

the moon is made of paper,

thick and cottony.

Someone tore it gently

in swooping deckled arc,

sculpting it to give me

a wink against the dark.

 

Dear reader,

This is not the perfect photo

about which I can boast;

the window I took aim through

added flourish of moon ghost.

But nighttime in the winter

I prefer being warm to bold;

it isn’t only dark out there,

it’s finger-nipping cold!

 

This is another one that, despite its length, makes me want to append “Burma-Shave!”

 

 

August 28.21: Coping

My son’s back yard

yields prodigiously,

vegetable-glutted

because rabbit-free.

So I have tomatoes

in my grandma’s old bowl —

what better emblem

of summer’s warm soul?

Such joy to the eye,

such promise of bliss —

the Louvre should have

such beauty as this!

 

 

August 19.21: Coping

I was feeling garden-poor,

so took my little black pitcher,

snipped some mighty color,

and felt a whole lot richer.

 

 

July 7.21: Coping

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.”

 

 

February 3.21: Coping

Beauty shocks, and steals our breath,

makes our neurons fizz,

forces us to contemplate

what can’t be real

is.

 

 

December 31.20: Coping

A wink, perhaps,

lightly nefarious:

above the noble

“Stradivarius”

the truth is stamped,

hidden slyly —

“Copy” — by luthier

deft and wily.

 

I think it was no coincidence that 2020 was the year I attended to my father’s violin, which I had allowed to fall into disreputable condition. I’d needed some sense of grounding, of continuity, in a year of such cataclysmic instability. I had it repaired and renewed for my grandson this Christmas, and there was indeed grounding. This was the instrument my father played in his grade school orchestra, circa 1925.

 

The one he played in our family Christmas concerts (a merry barnyard kind of sound) and introduced to his grandson circa 1977.

 

The one I rescued from my own shameful neglect and presented — in its well-worn KantKrack case, beribboned and (it seemed to me) proud — to his great-grandson this Christmas.

A violin doesn’t have to be a Stradivarius to be priceless. And 2020 has made us acutely more mindful of the priceless things that ground us.

Thank you, dear reader, for all your encouragement and insights this year. May the new year bring us all the repair, renewal, and tuning we need, may we be grounded in the priceless things of life, may we be mindful of those who grieve and who care for our sick, and may there one day again be real hugs!

 

 

December 23.20: Coping

Little fingers

leave a trail

made of paper

bent and frail;

older hands preserve

the mystery

of taped and crayoned

family history.

 

 

December 19.20: Coping

The fine art of living

can be plated,

the cold of the world

attenuated,

the chill of the news,

bewildering, gruesome,

stayed by affection

 expertly toothsome.

 

 

With thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to popover artist Cassandra Berg.

 

October 20.20

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?

 

 

 

 

October 11.20: Coping

Is the pond a kaleidoscope,

tumbling, soulless,

into accidental beauty,

or does it

in wistful deliberation

dream itself in Giverny?