The palate palette,
wizard’s sleight,
fairest fare,
ocular bite,
art most toothsome,
evanescent,
conjured deftly
to gild the present.
More thanks to photographer and gastronome S.W. Berg.
And to The Baker’s Wife Bistro and Bar, Hampton, VA.
Category Archives: Poetry
May 7.22: Coping, but barely
This was me
and this was you,
our wings be-fuzzed,
mysterious, new.
Tipping, toppling,
learning where
we stopped and started,
unaware
of cliffs and quicksand,
Pandora’s box,
we braved the world
of thorns and rocks.
Or so we thought. The really brave
were those close by
who hovered and watched
with wary eye,
letting us learn
from life’s tough classes
even if we fell
on our little
ummm
grasses.
Tomorrow is Mothers’ Day here; I am not a fan. I think it’s become a national day of panic. But that does not mean I don’t value mothering. I absolutely do. There are many who mother even if they’ve never given birth, and I salute every one.
Please pardon the quality of the photo, dear reader. You probably, and rightly, guessed that I was hunched down behind Venetian blinds muttering to that baby to HOLD STILL. He didn’t. Mother Goose (so to speak) did not cast a benign eye on me.
May 1.22: Coping, but barely
Many the wonder of spring
but the jaw-dropping best of them all
is a flower that never had bloomed
until one redoubtable fall.
A lilac in fall?
What could it portend?
Why in that dismal
tormented year’s end?
Pandemic exhausted,
hostility worn,
with leaves curled in death,
dry and forlorn,
we slumped into autumn
weary of strife,
and here blooms a lilac
with anomalous life.
A lilac in fall —
a thing beyond reason —
would it come back again
in traditional season?
The purpling answer
no nose can resist
nods in affirmative
its resolve to exist.
As fancy a flora
as ever hoorayed
exalts this springtime
in new life arrayed.
In my years here, this lilac had never given the slightest indication that it knew how to make a flower. Then, in the last gasps of 2021, it bloomed! An autumn-blooming lilac seemed in keeping with the chaos of the times. But would it bloom in the spring? Now we know!
April 30.22: Coping, but barely
Where are the toes
with which we hold
when we reach, teetering,
for the tender goaled?
When life twangs
our bearings like rubber band
and we, poor spitballs,
clawless in foot and hand,
hover on the verge of shot
yet, refusing to be denied,
become the squirrel,
wind and gravity defied,
and clutch that feeble twig,
how do we dare?
Does the soul have claws
that hold us there?
It seems appropriate, dear reader, to end Poetry Month with a question since I always start it with a question: what is poetry? Still scratching my head on that one.
April 27.22: Coping, but barely
The tortoise and the hare
have nothing on this pair.
The smugger the daunt,
the cheerier the taunt:
“Ya snooze, ya lose, mon frère!”
Yes, dear reader, I heard it myself.
That’s exactly what the little guy said as he churned by.
April 22.22: Coping, but barely
The pensive dog,
drowsed by talk,
took her thoughts
on wooded walk,
contemplative
and solitary,
past springtime’s
ruffled luminary.
The daffodils sighed
as she passed by,
looked after her
with solicitous eye.
This, dear reader, is Miss Janey Pickles. I’m told she is named for a literary figure beloved by my daughter-in-law. Some people speak of their grand-dogs; I am not one of those people. Janey Pickles is not my grand-dog even though she belongs to my daughter-in-law and my son. Or they belong to her. Whichever. The amazing thing about Janey Pickles is that sometimes she’s awake.
April 17.22: Coping, but barely
Old ways,
fragile shell,
human spirit
indomitable.
In tiny line
a testament,
promissory
document.
I believe these eggs are Ukrainian pysanky; they were a gift back around 1980 and have moved a lot with me. I am in awe of them and I unpack them every year hoping it won’t be the year I break one. This year more than ever.
Whatever your traditions, dear reader, may there be signs of new life for you, and may your traditions preserve your story. May our species one day prefer peace.
April 15.22: Coping, but barely
The art of the photo:
part timing, part luck.
Thus my photo
of a diving duck.
April 9.22: Coping, but barely
“Hello! I must be going!”
a tune too rarely heard,
wafted through the air
from waddling squatty bird.
Crestfallen and bewildered,
the pup, his tail a-droop,
wondered if he’d erred
in mention of “Duck Soup.”
The huffy Madame Mallard,
like all good critic quackers,
made it known that she prefers
the classic “Animal Crackers.”
With a salute to Marx Brothers movies:
“Animal Crackers” (1930)
“Duck Soup” (1933)
(What else would a dog and duck talk about?)
April 7.22: Coping, but barely
The thing about time:
it’s never where I’m.
Some of you know that my father referred to me as “the late Maureen O’Hern,” that my family said I was insufferably poky. I maintain I was deliberate. Those of us who live deliberately tend to think things over — and over — before we act. Clocks and calendars are annoying.
Thus did I miss that Poetry Month is upon us.
I seem to be in a perpetual state of catching up. Time and I are, and always have been, at odds. Or perhaps it’s just the measurement of time. “Late” is relative only to clocks and calendars, yes? This leads me to think about how we measure time so surgically. The vast amoeba of life cannot be held in tidy sequences. But could it be measured in poetry, which, to me, is anything but tidy?
This time of Now is saturated with blood and tears. Grief and anger are chewing us up. Clocks and calendars cannot measure it. Maybe the measure is taken in a certain kind of written word, in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, music, maybe even in the ephemera of a garden. If I can ever figure out what poetry is, perhaps I will find that all the above are types of poetry.
I think we seek the timeless. May you find it where you seek, dear reader, especially in Poetry Month.
Oddments 