What refuge
on a thin wire
that so many seek it?
What life
in a huddle?
When frigid waves
lap quietly
at our lives,
and a winter sun
makes the barren bright,
what warmth
in the insidious cold
is really creeping numbness?
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
The committee convenes
in officiousness large,
each of them sure
someone else is in charge.
Beneath fur and feather
it’s hard to judge pallor:
which will prevail,
discretion or valor?
In my pursuit of whether Shakespeare should be credited, I encountered a statement about things that annoy Shakespeare scholars.
I must say that Shakespeare scholars are easily annoyed.
All hail the nap!
That mini vacation,
miraculous reset,
arm-chair sedation,
restoring us to
youthful vigor
instead of creeping
mortis rigor.
So, as fugitive from
myself and the news,
I follow example
of the duck group-snooze.
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.
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.
She’s got her camera!
She’s out on her deck!
Flap your wing
and stick out your neck!
Shake tail feather
and follow me
in honking
photobombing V!
Table for three
on patio breezy;
blue-plate breakfast,
echinacea over easy.
Please pardon the filmy look, dear reader.
Sneaking up on finches requires a window between them and me,
and some deft manipulation of Venetian blinds and camera.
Morning came
too quietly,
neither chirp nor trill,
but only cicada’s
serrated drone.
A very timid cricket
tuned his small pipe.
There I stood,
knee-deep in July,
prickly and unsure,
so restless was the quiet.
Now the dark of August nights
and no firefly winks.
The Green Heron blats
like fallow French horn
once or twice a day,
and maple leaves,
scorched,
bleed at their edges.
Do I imagine
the urgency?
Time is out of sorts,
as am I.
