May 4.21: Coping

Kirk had it wrong;

that Final Frontier

isn’t some star —

it’s much more near.

It’s when you decide

you’re going to paint

and are sharply reminded

that young you ain’t.

This job designed

by Beelzebub

requires my head

between toilet and tub.

I used to could bend —

that’s historical fact —

but now I can’t seem

to be so compact.

My hips both object,

my knees ping and crack,

that creaking sound

is my lower back.

This be my swan song,

I won’t try this again;

I’ll adjust my horizons

to more accommodable yen.

I’ll hope to complete

and finish it nicely,

then I’ll turn in my brush

and hang out at Mos Eisley.

 

 

May the 4th be with you, dear reader!

And, yes, I’ve mixed Star Wars with Star Trek. Maybe poetic license is the REAL final frontier. I should have thrown in a Captain Video secret decoder ring.

 

 

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 18.20: Coping

Live trees with their fragrant cachet

aren’t meant for a feline sashay,

but when Willis the dog

gets the cat all agog

the tree can’t get out of the way.

 

 

Thanks to photographer Eugenia Roche.

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?

 

 

 

 

September 10.20: Coping

The recipe,

that work of art,

bequeathed from bubbling

kitchen heart,

with stain and splot

of ancient dough,

bringing to Now

the Long-ago.

Penmanship of

floured hand,

preserved on paper

less than grand,

thus creating

choice giftwrap

of what was once

a lowly scrap.

 

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,

and to Rose Schloot, owner of Cross River Lodge,

Grand Marais, Minnesota,

where this eloquent old piece of the past is displayed.

 

 

July 28.20: Coping

If I say I’ve known

a home that’s crowded,

the finches say

that’s highly doubted.

 

More thanks to photographer and finch landlord

S.W. Berg.

 

July 11.20: Coping

2019

2020

Yesterday I read a blog that asked if the reader has any gardening disappointments this year. Is he kidding? “Gardening” and “disappointment” go together like echinacea and Japanese beetles.

This is my third gardening season here; if you are a gardener, you know the third season is the beginning of seeing the garden as your own. For me, two distinct garden worlds: a bit shady in the front, a lot sunny in the back. Yes, Indiana clay and nasty root systems, exuberant invasives, malicious rabbits and chipmunks. But gradually mine.

Problems with a contractor have made it impossible for me to plant anything in the back this summer. All I have is a struggling collection of gangly seedlings with no place to grow. Empty tomato cages. No frilly yellow blossoms morphing into reds and golds. Not merely disappointment: it’s loss.

Gardeners survive the winter because they know a garden is coming, so when the garden fizzles the gardener kind of fizzles too. She might even let slip an imprecation. Maybe two.

Not everyone is a gardener, of course, but everyone has disappointments. And losses. It seems to me they are all felt more deeply this year because isolation is fertile ground for deep feelings.

So we cope, best we can, with emptiness where there should be life, and watch disappointment become loss, but we should never underestimate the toll it’s taking on us.

 

 

 

April 23.20: Coping

Yesterday I talked to a frozen slice of rye bread, a box of baking soda, and a toilet flush box.

That may not be a poem, but it’s the truth.

March 28.20: Coping

I seem to remember

when every grown-up

would sip something vile

from an everyday cup;

with cute little handle

and familiar old chip,

it was frequently clutched

in morning death grip.

I hadn’t yet learned

the elixir brew

was what made the sun rise

and enabled virtue.

But learn it I did

and in the meanwhile

the mug came along

in new sipping style.

Each mug a billboard

devoted to brevity,

graphics and text

mixing java with levity,

it warms our cold hands

not to mention our hearts,

so here’s to the mug

and the lift it imparts!

 

 

Lifting my mug this morning to you, dear reader,

with wishes for you and your loved ones:

may you be safe!

Saluting also photographer S.W. Berg

and coffee mug aficionado D.J. Berg!

 

 

 

 

March 6.20

Lusty thump

marks application,

with every stroke

fine syncopation,

wood on dough,

performance art,

percussive beat

of kitchen heart,

stretching, tugging,

this way, that,

persuading yeast

or flour and fat

to peasant noodle,

earthy, chewy,

or frail cream puff,

flaky, gooey.

In maestro’s hands

a nimble trill,

here on the wall

lumpish, still.

But regard with respect

the two-handled bole:

even inert

it’s ready to roll.

 

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to la Madeleine, Fairfax County, VA.