May 5.24: Coping, but barely

The trees far away

turn to blue,

dissolving into the sky,

hinting of things new.

But there are slippers at the door.

The air rolls on forever,

wanting to be breathed,

a world in wondering

unknowns wreathed.

But there are slippers at the door.

Tail-twitch of squirrel

throws down the glove;

wobble of rabbit ear,

coo of the dove

beckon like fireflies,

here but then not,

threshold moment,

indecision-fraught.

Because there are slippers at the door.

Isn’t it inner-dwelt,

a creeping unstilled fear:

if I seek that open world,

will the slippers still be here?

 

Submitted by photographer S.W. Berg

and me

to Dan Antion’s

Thursday Doors Writing Challenge.

(Dan, did I do this right?)

 

May 2.24: Coping, but barely

One last hug

 

I had to make a hard decision, dear reader, one I’ve been dreading for a while: I had to have a big maple taken down. This hurts. I think the original owners planted it, and I think they were a young couple; I can picture them in their first home, so excited to plant this tree as part of their vision. After all, we plant trees for those who will follow us.

But sometimes people plant trees picturing only what’s aboveground. In a small yard, a small tree seems the perfect fit. Twenty years later, the yard is still small. The tree and its roots? Not so much.

Not only were the roots of this tree cozying up to the foundation of my house, but they were also wrapped around the trunk, choking the tree. The front yard is a veritable corduroy road with surface roots. Those poor roots had nowhere to go but up to find food.

And thus did I lose bountiful shade on the west-facing front of my home. Hot summer, anyone?

Will I plant another tree? Probably, some day. When/if I do, it will be from the roots up.

 

April 30.24: Coping, but barely

His nose tucked neatly

under his wing,

slumbering peacefully

in the cradle of spring,

dreaming, no doubt,

of tasty pond goo,

he isn’t aware

he’s a one-duck zoo.

The youth of the pond

in rapt exploration

are staring at him

in awed contemplation,

trying to figure

just how in the heck

came a backwards head

on a wrong-way neck.

 

 

April 27.24: Coping, but barely

“Tell it slant,”

the poet wrote.

My camera heard

the cryptic quote

and ever since

has suffered no guilt

to record the world

in vertigo’d tilt.

But perhaps this is poet’s

wisdom elemental:

truth is best known

in bits incremental.

And maybe the camera

senses a duty

to say same applies

to earth’s transient beauty.

 

 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

with explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

— Emily Dickinson

 

My belated tribute to Poetry Month and Earth Day.

Also my argument that it’s not my fault when my photos are cattywampus; it’s my camera in cahoots with Emily Dickinson.

And, yes, dear reader, I sense the irony: Truth is stuck in this country’s throat right now. Is Emily’s notion of slowly revealed Truth the same as truth pried out like an abscessed tooth? (I guess I can’t help rhyming.)

 

April 22.24: Coping, but barely

In more-or-less spring,

the gardener tends

to detritus of winter,

trapped odds and ends

stubbornly stuck,

clumped and between,

slimy and gross,

deep down in the green.

With whiff of the past

distinctive effluvium,

removing last year’s

exhausted exuvium,

the gardener can come

upon things unexpected,

like a snack long forgotten

and song resurrected.

What torture, what misery,

what shock instantaneous,

that summer camp ditty,

sudden, spontaneous!

Now it’s stuck in my head —

I’ll be kind and not say it

else you too, dear reader,

should be doomed to replay it.

 

If you, dear reader, are also a fan of Dan Antion’s blog, you too will be wondering if Smokey scampered off to Indiana with this peanut and then skedaddled back to Dan for more.

 

 

April 20.24: Coping, but barely

What is that El Dorado

in deepest self avowed?

What world of could-be’s

beyond doubt’s cloud?

What firefly winks

over the mire of the mind,

trepidation and wonder

intertwined?

What calls to us,

sirensong in our veins,

like the moon to the tree,

in perpetual strains?

 

April 11.24: Coping, but barely

When you splat on the landscape

like a blob of red paint,

you have to admit

a chameleon you ain’t.

Camouflage isn’t

your thing, feathered flame;

nice try, but hide-and-seek

just isn’t your game.

 

 

April 2.24: Coping, but barely

Curled and lifeless remnants

of verdant summer past,

piled in brown haphazard

as wool to winter’s blast,

give way now to surgings

of supple green newborn,

to Bacchanalian clusters

and blast of sunny horn.

The party hats of spring

donned by stem and twig

declare the end of brown

and bounce in happy jig.

And now my consternation

in querulous note to you:

why does such depth of purple

show here as a beautiful blue?

 

Ah, the mysteries of photography. You must take my word for it, dear reader: the blue is really purple, and the golden yellow combined with that rich purple is hurting my arm as I pat myself on the back for transplanting these bulbs a couple years ago: the gardener’s gloat. (Ah. I hear at least one of you thinking you’ll get my gloat.)

 

 

March 23.24: Coping, but barely

The thundering herd emerges,

nests and burrows shake;

Miami ain’t got nothin’

on the partying pond’s spring break.

Indifferent to the heron,

careless of robin and jay,

they hog the warm pondside

elbowing squirrels away.

Hedonistic revelers,

greeting glad springtide,

Mama most the manic,

getting the kids outside.

 

 

March 22.24: Coping, but barely

Queen Anne at the threshold,

Queen Anne at the door,

Queen Anne stretching skyward —

what’s she looking for?

Unseemly for a regal

lacy-collared posy,

she’s peering in the windows —

how prosaically nosy!

 

Thanks again to Susan Rushton for another botanical personality!