Bold like Ozymandias
declaiming to all nations,
my species speaks in Latin
and names the constellations!
Poecile atricapillus
regarded me with disdain
atop Syringa vulgaris,
twittering this refrain:
Pfui, pfui, pfui!
(the fire was in his eye)
I can balance on a bud —
I’d like to see you try!
In robinspeak: Look at me!
I call from minaret of tree!
Look up! I cannot wait all day
to sing my song and say my say!
Raise your eyes and tilt your head!
You’ve met your feet — look up instead!
The sky is grey and winter lingers;
wrap up tight and mitten your fingers,
or be like me and weather the weathers
by bellowing full your winter feathers.
Rise above! Stretch out your wings!
You humans are such starchy things!
I grant there’s good stuff in the dirt,
but too much looking down can hurt.
Look up and see the endless skies —
your spirit needs the exercise!
What risk to you, oh, you clay-bound,
when both your feet stay on the ground?
Dare to snub the daily strife
and defy the gravity of life!
Yes, dear reader, that’s what the robin said. I heard it myself.
Ah, the splendor of spring!
Gift-wrapped in white!
Nature’s rude joke
after sleep-shortened night.
My coffee tight clutched,
my brain unsteady,
I’ll change my clocks
when I’m good and ready.
Eight years ago, on this date, I published this post, which I find timely still. If by some chance, dear reader, you should have a small drum convenient, I invite you to read this out loud while accompanying yourself with a good beat. (Timbrel and sackbut optional.) You will need to count 2-3-4 in between stanzas to get it right. (An empty Quaker oatmeal box is an acceptable accompaniment. Hard to tune, though.)
March Roundelay
‘Tis wondrous fair
how I swerve and swear
in a seamless arc
as I weave and snark
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
around the potholes.
I amaze myself
with my grace and stealth
with jaws clenched tight
as I curse their blight
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
oh, the potholes.
It’s a lurch and a sway
and a moan and a bray
a zag and a zig
an impossible jig
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
amid the potholes.
A screech and a gasp
a white-knuckled grasp
a brake-slam dance
a murderous glance
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
it’s dodgems
edging on the potholes.
Of patience bereft
mine axles cleft,
with a bang and a twist
imprecation and a fist
a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
I rage in vain
against the potholes.
The snow is black
there’s a wrench in my back
it’s cold and bleak
as I jolt and squeak
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
and an inch to spare
beside the potholes.
Ah, misery me,
lack-a-day-dee!
It’s a dreary dance
around the potholes.
My car doesn’t fly
and neither do I
so we take our chance
around the potholes
with a hey and a ho
and a nonny-nonny-no
we take our chance
and dance
nonny-no
around the potholes.
With a bow and hey-nonny to Gilbert & Sullivan.
When winter drips
its slow clock away
and tree bones, like mine,
want for warmth,
an ember alights
and sings,
like Whitman,
of himself.
So sure the poet,
scarlet-voiced in the chill.
There once was a housefinch named Louie
who fretted crabapples were hooey:
“They pucker my beak
and strain my physique!”
And he flew away chirping “p-tooey!”
Once again, dear reader, the urge to add Burma Shave.
An ordinary window,
an ordinary day,
an ordinary glimpse,
then mental tour jeté.
A camera must be had!
Indecorous dash ensued,
then, breathless, stealthy, sly,
I engaged in conduct crude.
In blushless want of manners,
intrusive imposition,
brutally dismissive
of my need to get permission,
I zoomed in on his person,
with brain and camera focus
on this feathered fisherman
and his wintry bare-branched locus.
He appeared a bit put out
at what the flower said,
which made his handsome feathers
stand up atop his head.
I wish I could have heard
but this is all I got;
I could sneak clandestine photo,
but eavesdrop I could not.
And thus the common day,
as if by magic word,
was instantly transformed
by a Merlin of a bird.
It was because of Walt Kelly’s brilliant Pogo illustrations that I knew this was a kingfisher. It was the Internet that told me it was a Belted Kingfisher. Why it isn’t a Collared Kingfisher I do not know. The Internet also told me that it is common in central Indiana. I think not. This little guy was a first for me.
I stood in the middle of my living room, far back from the window. This fine specimen was on a tree across the pond. All hail the power of the zoom!
“The Last Rose of Summer,”
that plaintive Irish keen,
sang itself inside me,
soaring yet terrene.
This brilliant ruby voice
of color ‘mid the browned
insisted that its smallness
was yet a mighty sound.
November madrigal,
enrobed in regal satins,
sleeps now in quiet earth
awaiting springtime matins.
Some will tsk and say that a moss rose is not a rose, that Portulaca and Rosa have nary a botanical thing in common. But you know what Shakespeare said, dear reader: “a rose by any other name.” If my grandma called it a moss rose, then it’s a rose. Grandmas rule.
With thanks to Irish poet Thomas Moore.
Brown birds,
brown leaves,
crackles, crumbles,
webs in eaves.
The glossy crow
in polished black
perpetual
melancholiac.
Pallid sky,
sunlight void,
droops a greyness
ichthyoid.
Pond of slate,
grass turned rubble,
wind that moans
of toil and trouble.
The year grows weary,
needs to sleep,
gardens snuggle
in winter’s keep.
Beshawled and flanneled,
I watch the earth
beshawl itself
with color dearth.
With apologies to Shakespeare.
You think you’re funny, don’t you,
oh, gods of endless snows?
Your humor leaves me cold (haha)
with frostbite on my nose.
Of this white stuff
I’ve had enough,
Begone! And go away!
It’s time for spring —
quit dawdling!
But come back on Christmas Day.
Yes, dear reader, on this late March morning,
it’s a white, white world out my window.
Part of me says it’s pretty.
The rest of me has a different opinion.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
Oddments 