Zinnias in tatters
petals all strewn
who done the deed?
what marauding poltroon?
When I glimpsed the bright sneak
I recanted my whine
my old friends have found me!
the garden’s more mine.
Please pardon the slight haze, dear reader. I had to nab this shot through the window.
When your plumbing’s contrary
your car’s in the shop
the travails of the world
are over the top
you’re always on hold
and a half-inch behind
words and your keys
keep slipping your mind
the robocalls pester
the outlook is dour,
call a time-out
and go watch a flower.
I do realize that not all life’s problems are so easily airbrushed, and not everyone has a flower to watch, and I wish it were otherwise. But the other day this happened to me. I was utterly out of patience and stormed out to the back, and there was this gorgeous, tranquil little being, totally absorbed in the zinnias. Imagine being hit so hard by calm.
The day closes in layers —
palimpsest first
awaiting tomorrow’s script
inscribed by sandal and toe —
next water, rocking itself
in heavy-lidded blues,
slowing, nodding —
then birds, pulling cloud blanket
tucking in
a yawning world
dimming voices
on edge of dream —
atop, where wisps of day
linger like talcum
a so-distant moon
calls the stars.
Thanks yet again to photographer S.W. Berg.
If I,
adorned in silver filigree
and fine-cut lapis lazuli,
could cast
so delicate a shadow,
I too
would deign
to be admired.
I’ve written tomato posts before
I hope another won’t annoy ya
this is, I think, but half tomato
the other half’s sequoia.
For many years I’ve planted tomatoes in memory of my Grandpa Mauck. The smell of the plant always brings him back for me. Alas, the smell was about the extent of my harvest. I just couldn’t grow tomatoes. Until last year. Suddenly those Mauck gardening genes roused up, and I had actual tomatoes! I especially loved the pear tomato, so this year I tried another one, and, even though it was planted late and spindly, and in Someone Else’s Garden, it rallied and has taken exuberance to a whole new level, racing over and through the deck rail, and draping itself over the potted plants. I know that one morning I’ll wake up and find it wound around my ankle.
A pear tomato, marigolds, zinnias, dill…as you can see, dear reader, the garden is slowly, slowly becoming mine. (MINE, you wretched rabbits and Japanese beetles and chipmunks, MINE! Not YOURS!!)
It’s raining cats and canines
the sky just keeps on pouring
it’s oppressively predictable
tedious and boring.
But it’s Disneyland to this guy
with his stripey periscope
“Come on!” he gurgles at me —
I’d rather be dry and mope.
A tiny light
frail power line
to bear our smallness
the anodyne.
Many thanks to S.W. Berg and his sharp photographer’s eye.
