The foot holds to path
but eye to farthest tree,
thus from where we are
to where we want to be.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
Category Archives: Poetry
June 28.20: Coping
In winter
I dream of such greens/
in lazy pools and streams
of shadow,
indolent,
sleepy,
like deep breathing
of quiet ocean/
in yellowed splotches
of summer’s hooray,
warm with memory
of sprinkler jumping,
chigger scratching,
shrilling
ready or not!
from neon popsicle mouths,
like the clover-drunk
sun-crazed bees
in happy ferment/
until,
panting,
we fall into that shade pool
and the green seeps into
our dreams.
June 15.20: Coping
Upside-down-ness
above below
gives me doubts
and vertigo.
I fear my eye
misapprehends
if sameness is
my constant lens.
I can sometimes
see anew
when things are toppled
all askew.
From eye to brain
zig-zaggety:
what I think I know
from what I think I see.
Many years ago, while I was caregiver to Dad, I audited Beginning Drawing at a nearby university. I couldn’t finish it because Dad grew so much worse, but even in that partial semester I learned immeasurably more than I can tell you, dear reader. One assignment was to draw something upside-down. Life was upside-down anyway, so why not? It was for me an astonishing process. It is one thing to draw something as you see it; it is another thing entirely to draw something as you don’t see it. When I was forced to turn an image upside-down and draw it, I was also forced to think differently. It was surprisingly uncomfortable.
June 12.20: Coping
A snoop amid the boughs
beady-eyed, proctorial,
sizes up my gardening
with aspect territorial.
June 7.20: Coping
Sunday brunch al fresco
never better was
with family all decked out
in finest feather and fuzz.
June 5.20: Coping
In sonorous melancholy
from twilight until dawn
continuo of bagpipe
goes on and on and on.
His one note is perfected
in infinite repeat
in melody deficient
but heartfelt in its bleat.
He cannot sleep for want
of something he calls for
determinedly insistent
it just takes one croak more.
June 3.20: Coping
In solemn grace
amid death’s drums
something beautiful
this way comes.
With thanks to Shakespeare
and to whatever benevolence
sent the swans to the pond.
In no way, dear reader, do I intend this to be some saccharine comment
about how things aren’t as bad as they seem:
things ARE as bad as they seem.
But sometimes there’s a moment of reprieve.
June 1.20: Coping
Ubiquitous low-tech invention,
the always-ready stair,
instant cardio workout
almost everywhere.
Its function is well known,
we never have to guess:
does it go up or down?
the answer’s always yes.
It’s good amid the chaos
when everything’s upendable
to have a little fragment
so handily dependable.
Indeed, dear reader, there comes a time
when taking the stairs is but a wistful memory.
But still there they are.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
May 29.20: Coping
Mere water and light,
how very explainable,
but I suspect something more
legerdemainable.
May 13.20: Coping
When rain takes down
the petals of spring
and color lies dying,
when bough and branch,
weary of weight,
sag groundward,
do we pretend not to see
how much like us?
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
