Late summer’s plumes, crabapple bangles,
frothy wedgwood sky —
the layer cakes of seasons
delectably pass by.
Yes, yes, everything reminds me of dessert.
But you knew that.
Poetry makes me hungry.
Late summer’s plumes, crabapple bangles,
frothy wedgwood sky —
the layer cakes of seasons
delectably pass by.
Yes, yes, everything reminds me of dessert.
But you knew that.
Poetry makes me hungry.
The gardener’s profound satisfaction,
last word in delayed gratification:
a corner that booms
with tumultuous blooms,
and a duck for gentrification.
On Labor Day we who garden ask ourselves if gardening is labor or therapy or fun. The answer is yes. I think the same applies to wood-working, cookie-baking, quilting, and maybe half a hundred other ways in which we invest ourselves. When we were thirty, it was different, and today I thank all those younger people whose labor keeps me going.
Thanks to my son the gardener for photo op.
Harvest looms,
maple tips blush,
September’s percussion
comes in a rush.
Wachoo, snuffle, snort!
rings out through the land;
kleenex is crammed
in pocket and hand.
With sinuses gurgling,
persistent nose splash,
“Have a nice day”
is abject balderdash.
That hackneyed nice day
is pie in the sky
when the red of hot peppers
emblazons the eye.
Itching and wheezing
and scratchy of throat,
sufferers glare
when others emote
how lovely the day,
how pure the sky’s bluing;
they’d rail and berate,
but they’re busy wachooing.
The almosts of the garden — I know them and yet I disbelieve. Almost ripe. Almost ready. The bud on the vine, swaddling life snugly within itself, almost a melon, almost a squash, almost a morning glory. I know what it will be and yet I disbelieve. The wonder of it is as new as the almost itself.
To watch is to disbelieve. It cannot be that Puritan-plain dirt conjures such richness of tapestry and ornament, emerald and amethyst, filigree of leaf and tendril. From the muslin of February to the brocade of August there is nothing believable. In a slow burst, the almosts bloom to opulence in velvety defiance of winter’s naysayers.
In the almost is the breath-stop, the cannot-be, that gossamer moment that hovers like the hummingbird I cannot hold.
Practicing prose poetry
with thanks to my son’s tomato forest.
There bloom at my feet
sun and sky;
I can’t explain it
so I won’t try.
Does a garden laugh?
Yes. That’s what I think.
What could else explain
this impertinence of pink?
No sooner had I written of
snapdragons’ ruffled white
than this haughty pale bubblegum
erupted into sight.
Did I plant this nonconformist,
this blushing heliophile?
No. It planted its own self,
chuckling all the while.
Its merriment unbridled
in my gardener’s flabbergast,
it reveled in its message:
it’s the garden that laughs last.
A puddle in a path
divides the population
in two distinctive camps
of opposite persuasion.
One must forge ahead
to know where this path goes;
the other shrinks from earth
that gushes ‘twixt the toes.
That second would be me,
uncurious when it comes
to mud or bugs or slithering;
my adventurousness succumbs.
I prefer the no-itch life,
sufficient just a look;
I’ll follow muddy paths
in air-conditioned book.
I may not be the outdoorsy type,
but I know beauty when I see it.
A salute to those who care for our green spaces.
Ritchey Woods Nature Preserve,
Fishers, IN.
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.
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.