September stands tall
between spring’s childhood
and winter’s dotage,
a bit round perhaps
with pumpkin paunch,
its brow gold-speckled,
but vital still.
One leaf, two leaves,
abacus of mortality,
drop
in quiet obedience
to the authority of time.
A cicada sings of ennui,
its sleepy notes sticking to
wet morning air
where August lingers.
In a sigh’s time the sand tells of the living,
imprints
of those who once were.
In the mist,
dreams,
refusing death,
live on.
A constant horizon
commands our sight,
offering nothing but a beyond
to lift our eyes,
or maybe that is everything.
Remembrance Day 2021
9/11
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg
for another poignant image.
Harvest comes soon,
the greens rich and deep,
how touchable, sniffable
the twining leafed keep.
A scruffy-kneed gardener
with nails edged in black
beams notwithstanding
the crick in his back.
It’s ever a miracle —
don’t try to explain
how seeds and a longing
are linked in life’s chain.
With thanks again to my back-yard gardener son,
for both the photo op and the basil!
We were green once,
in salad days,
fixed firm to umbilical vine,
slowly orange,
until, soaked in sun brine,
we plumped to red.
All as written by some sightless scribe
ordaining how life seeds,
or maybe
by some deliberate kindness
in back yard dirt
that soul and body feeds.
Gardeners wonder.
With thanks to Shakespeare
and to my firstborn, Dennis, the backyard gardener.
The humble crumble
butter and flour,
sugar, of course,
for superpower.
Bumply roof
for muffin, cake
takes the edge off
pain and ache.
A sure Rx
for life’s annoyance,
transformative
to smile and buoyance.
There’s crunch
no matter where it’s put,
betwixt the teeth
or underfoot.
The perfect jewel
on nose or chin,
timeless fashion,
lap or skin.
Childhood’s lesson,
ever sweet:
it’s no fun
to be too neat.
Many thanks to Judy for her wonderful vegetable recipe!
May it be a blessing on your September, dear reader!
My son’s back yard
yields prodigiously,
vegetable-glutted
because rabbit-free.
So I have tomatoes
in my grandma’s old bowl —
what better emblem
of summer’s warm soul?
Such joy to the eye,
such promise of bliss —
the Louvre should have
such beauty as this!
Gaura gossip
cannot wait;
it’s the latest
in click-bait.
To tease the marigold
hovering near,
it’s whispered in
geranium ear.
Good for the garden,
of that I am sure,
gossip so often
a form of manure.
Aesop says be like the ant,
eschew grasshopper ways:
the ant puts by and plans ahead,
grasshoppers waste their days.
The ants in frantic harvest
prepare for winter’s grey.
The grasshopper, all moony,
ponders the green of today;
in foolery like writing
does he his muse pursue;
he yearns to be a poet
and use words like “eschew.”
Many more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
I have no idea how he got the grasshopper to pose like this.
In the time of two breaths
there’s the twilight sweet spot
when everything hovers
between color and not.
White becomes silver
as shadows unfurl,
or maybe it’s pewter
or mother-of-pearl;
reds turn to velvet
with lavender nap,
blues, cupric sulfate,
with diamond wrap.
Yellows to brass
with gold overlays,
burnished in hot coal,
smoldering blaze.
And a palette is born
each day at its end
that no words can capture
but only pretend.
I was feeling garden-poor,
so took my little black pitcher,
snipped some mighty color,
and felt a whole lot richer.
