It’s an earthen air
sagging over the dawn
musty
sweating on the lawn
popping with toadstools
and yesterday’s rain sits still
gathering the scent of soil
and a nameless farmer’s till
ghosts of crops past
rain-wafted now
old farms unburied
by summer storm plow
smells of wet summer
airy thick soup
fragrant toothsome
morning droop.
Houses blink
their sleepy eyes
and chimneys stretch
to morning skies
on tip-toe reaching
to find out
what the raspberry froth
is all about.
Coffee raises eyelids
but a gardener’s real buzz
comes from the morning sun
caught on tomato fuzz.
If my camera could
I would
make a picture of the sound
this yawning day —
busy pattering soft
rain
mud-muffled,
tire splash
as people trespass
into worms’ world,
robin flutes
through the dripping dark,
splats
syncopated
on the roof.
The other day I happened upon
a forum on NPR
a rabbi’s words illumined
a mood as black as tar:
when optimism can’t be had
we must insist on hope,
and keep in mind the difference
as we walk this slippery slope.
I opened the window this morning
Die Zauberflöte silvered the air!
the crimson Papageno,
the high-headed Chanticleer!
Corny it may be
but I need to think it so
the return of morning birdsong
as rabbinical treetop echo.
Behold the breakfast table
in homey dishabille
history in the making
gummed with cold oatmeal.
Whither the flowered apron
ironed and daintily bowed,
cloth of bright blue gingham
à la Ozzie and Harriet mode?
How can appetite thrive here
amid such disarray?
Paging Martha Stewart!
Who lives here anyway?
(Me.)
I opened the window
and breathed way deep
the pre-dawn air
thick with sleep
drizzles had left it
soft and warm
very
un-January
not the norm
though wistful for spring
I understood
that January’s mud
smells almost as good.
