September stands tall
between spring’s childhood
and winter’s dotage,
a bit round perhaps
with pumpkin paunch,
its brow gold-speckled,
but vital still.
One leaf, two leaves,
abacus of mortality,
drop
in quiet obedience
to the authority of time.
A cicada sings of ennui,
its sleepy notes sticking to
wet morning air
where August lingers.
Harvest comes soon,
the greens rich and deep,
how touchable, sniffable
the twining leafed keep.
A scruffy-kneed gardener
with nails edged in black
beams notwithstanding
the crick in his back.
It’s ever a miracle —
don’t try to explain
how seeds and a longing
are linked in life’s chain.
With thanks again to my back-yard gardener son,
for both the photo op and the basil!
We were green once,
in salad days,
fixed firm to umbilical vine,
slowly orange,
until, soaked in sun brine,
we plumped to red.
All as written by some sightless scribe
ordaining how life seeds,
or maybe
by some deliberate kindness
in back yard dirt
that soul and body feeds.
Gardeners wonder.
With thanks to Shakespeare
and to my firstborn, Dennis, the backyard gardener.
The humble crumble
butter and flour,
sugar, of course,
for superpower.
Bumply roof
for muffin, cake
takes the edge off
pain and ache.
A sure Rx
for life’s annoyance,
transformative
to smile and buoyance.
There’s crunch
no matter where it’s put,
betwixt the teeth
or underfoot.
The perfect jewel
on nose or chin,
timeless fashion,
lap or skin.
Childhood’s lesson,
ever sweet:
it’s no fun
to be too neat.
Many thanks to Judy for her wonderful vegetable recipe!
May it be a blessing on your September, dear reader!
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!
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.
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.
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.
I’m so little I can hide me
among the garden rocks,
I’m as welcome as a locust
and cute as chickenpox.
I wear a soft and furry coat
with cottontail behind,
but my heart is solid porcine
my ancestors all swine.
Chorus: Oh, engorgement!
I’m happy to my toes!
I’m coming for your garden
with a clover on my nose!
To be sung to the tune of “Oh, Susannah.”
With apologies for the foggy look:
I had to finagle a shot through the Venetian blinds again.
I was born during World War II and do not pretend to remember the horrors. I do vaguely remember Tip Top.
My dad had a critical skills deferment because he worked for American Steel Foundries, which manufactured train parts, essential to the war effort. Those men worked long, long hours. With a purpose. He had two sisters, one in the Marines, the other in the WAVES; they had the same purpose.
Mom and Dad spoke of the get-togethers for friends who were on their way to serve, and who never came home. No one who remained home would pretend to be in the same situation as those in combat, but the ration books tell of shared purpose, which meant in some cases making meat loaf for six with Knox gelatin and a cup of chopped meat.
There has been copious bloodshed before and since, and it would seem our species is hell-bent on extinguishing itself. So we might grow numb to the dying. Maybe we already are numb.
Therefore, it’s wise to have a day to not be numb and to think deliberately of those who died to protect a way of governing that theoretically we value, and to ask if, here and now, in shared purpose, we would be willing to eat Knox Meat Loaf.
