What refuge
on a thin wire
that so many seek it?
What life
in a huddle?
When frigid waves
lap quietly
at our lives,
and a winter sun
makes the barren bright,
what warmth
in the insidious cold
is really creeping numbness?
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
The committee convenes
in officiousness large,
each of them sure
someone else is in charge.
The precarious known,
the thatched belief,
swayed by life,
like twig and leaf —
when bared to talon,
gale and cold,
will it crumble
or will it hold?
Beneath fur and feather
it’s hard to judge pallor:
which will prevail,
discretion or valor?
In my pursuit of whether Shakespeare should be credited, I encountered a statement about things that annoy Shakespeare scholars.
I must say that Shakespeare scholars are easily annoyed.
Comes now night’s black broom,
sweeping citric glow
over earth’s long arc
into some tomorrow.
Two planets meet the while
in astronomical collusion,
appearing in a oneness
of ballyhooed illusion.
It isn’t the conjunction but
the difference that’s grand
between what we can see
and what we understand.
Thanks and congratulations on capturing the Conjunction to S.W. Berg.
My apologies, dear reader:
the Conjunction faded in the transfer
to my blog. I hope you can see it!
Although this post is coincidence,
I cannot help noting this is Little Christmas.
The tradition of the star may not be universal
but human searching surely is.
Of white it can be said
that breath is lost,
a waxen hour
on air embossed.
With thanks to my dear friend Donna for this gorgeous amaryllis.
The pond crackles
on my eyes
as papery floes
epithelialize,
fragile bits
of water skin
turned to diamond,
inchoate, thin.
FASTER! it goaded,
SPEED! it said;
I swallowed hard
and shook my head.
I don’t want fast,
I want some slow;
I want more stop
and not more go.
Network, server,
gigabit,
radio wave:
what is it?
Mega, macro,
ultra and such —
improve my life?
Not so much.
I can’t keep up,
my brain is boxed,
must watch some ducks
and get detoxed.
The inquisitive vine
must find out
what each bottle
is all about.
It must in tendril’d
curl and twist
make sure that nothing
has been missed.
It knows the truth
herein applied:
nothing’s learned
if nothing’s tried.
Happy birthday to D.J. Berg, who can grow anything,
even bottles,
and whose inquisitive vine is a lot like her.
And thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
Fear is served,
heaped, cold, on unseen platter
where empty table
speaks to us.
There was picnic once,
soda fizz
and bright mustard,
where now only air
teasing whispers from
dry grass.
In barren quiet
the words come:
what if I’m the only one?
In this country, dear reader, we enter Thanksgiving week torn. No: shredded. How do we celebrate isolation and dread? If we try to “count our blessings,” how are we not trivializing the losses among us?
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg for this poignant image.
