October 27.20: Coping

We’ve climbed up Darwin’s ladder

of Natural Selection,

the bug and I together,

toward evolutionary perfection,

but I ponder our relative states:

who has the higher trajection,

the one with legs and wings,

or the one stuck in this election?

 

 

October 18.20: Coping

 

In stillness

the leaves,

in silence

the shadows,

maybe a bug,

burrowing,

crackles,

sighs,

tummy-scratches,

sleeps.

 

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to Fort Harrison State Park, Indianapolis.

October 12.20: Coping

A driven, fevered

bee be he,

zigging, zagging

drunkenly;

mead of autumn,

sweet and heady,

makes his skinny legs

unsteady,

wobbily resolved

in year’s decline

to buzz each flower

an Auld Lang Syne.

 

 

October 4.20: Coping

If I breathe,

will I hurt the air,

will I break the moon,

shatter, tear

this moment

frail, silvern,

when crickets whisper

Chopin nocturne?

September 26.20: Coping

In bright foreshadow

does autumn sun

frost the amethyst;

then does the butterfly know

to kiss it goodbye.

 

 

With thanks to photographer Mary Jo Bassett.

September 22:20: Coping

It seems to me

there’s an obvious plot

to get my goat

(which is got a lot).

How else explain

these mortal remains,

matted and framed,

among the day’s banes?

A villainous move,

a deliberate ploy,

to irritate, vex,

to taunt and annoy.

There was nothing to do

but take all apart

and grouse at the bug

who thought he was art.

 

 

August 12.20: Coping

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.

 

 

February 18.20

Spring is imminent

I have the certain feeling:

behold the season’s first

spider on the ceiling.

(Ick.)

 

September 25.19

On a bland and barren slab of clay

something delicate and fine —

did it touch my path by accident

or was it by design?

 

A lot of things take on deeper meaning these days, dear reader. I am given much to think about. My grandchildren spent the night with me this past weekend; my fifteen-year-old granddaughter is now a vegetarian because of her convictions. I am trying to reduce plastic in my life. My own aging body tells me daily nothing is forever. A lone butterfly seems to block my way in angry silence. Just my imagination, right?

 

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.