December 22.20: Coping

Time! That sneaky,

cantankerous power,

measuring immeasurables

by paltry hour,

grinding slow

when I can’t wait,

racing ahead

when I am late,

deliberate, cagey,

ever contrarian,

unbending, stern

disciplinarian.

It mocks and laughs

at helpless me,

scurrilous in its

hilarity.

My clock has stopped

at ten past eight

but feeble tickings

reverberate

through quiet night

and restless sleep

reminding me

that time won’t keep.

It will proceed,

will not defer,

disdainful of

what I prefer.

 

When I was a kid, dear reader, time stopped every December and I knew Christmas would never come. How like now. Time does seem to have stopped, and I must thank you, dear reader, for being my new batteries throughout a tedious, painful, terrifying year.

 

 

 

 

December 20.20: Coping

The pond crackles

on my eyes

as papery floes

epithelialize,

fragile bits

of water skin

turned to diamond,

inchoate, thin.

 

 

December 19.20: Coping

The fine art of living

can be plated,

the cold of the world

attenuated,

the chill of the news,

bewildering, gruesome,

stayed by affection

 expertly toothsome.

 

 

With thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to popover artist Cassandra Berg.

 

December 18.20: Coping

Live trees with their fragrant cachet

aren’t meant for a feline sashay,

but when Willis the dog

gets the cat all agog

the tree can’t get out of the way.

 

 

Thanks to photographer Eugenia Roche.

December 10.20: Coping

An amazement happened yesterday —

I’ve no idea why —

my phone just upped and worked

out of the clear blue sky!

I had no magic word,

no high-tech stratagem,

so respect the awesome power

of the Christmas M&M!

 

HAPPY EMILY DICKINSON’S BIRTHDAY, dear reader!

 

December 6.20: Coping

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.

 

December 2.20: Coping

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.

 

 

November 23.20: Coping

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.

 

November 19.20: Coping

All hail the nap!

That mini vacation,

miraculous reset,

arm-chair sedation,

restoring us to

youthful vigor

instead of creeping

mortis rigor.

So, as fugitive from

myself and the news,

I follow example

of the duck group-snooze.

 

 

November 15.20: Coping

In autumn I teeter

precariously

between what is

and what will be.

The world is

a flaming jubilee,

a counterbalance

of surety

against the leafless

skeleton tree,

time’s drum that beats

relentlessly.

The crimson pledge

of cyclicity

bears also whiff

of mortality.