Little fingers
leave a trail
made of paper
bent and frail;
older hands preserve
the mystery
of taped and crayoned
family history.
Little fingers
leave a trail
made of paper
bent and frail;
older hands preserve
the mystery
of taped and crayoned
family history.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Spring is imminent
I have the certain feeling:
behold the season’s first
spider on the ceiling.
(Ick.)