April 22.24: Coping, but barely

In more-or-less spring,

the gardener tends

to detritus of winter,

trapped odds and ends

stubbornly stuck,

clumped and between,

slimy and gross,

deep down in the green.

With whiff of the past

distinctive effluvium,

removing last year’s

exhausted exuvium,

the gardener can come

upon things unexpected,

like a snack long forgotten

and song resurrected.

What torture, what misery,

what shock instantaneous,

that summer camp ditty,

sudden, spontaneous!

Now it’s stuck in my head —

I’ll be kind and not say it

else you too, dear reader,

should be doomed to replay it.

 

If you, dear reader, are also a fan of Dan Antion’s blog, you too will be wondering if Smokey scampered off to Indiana with this peanut and then skedaddled back to Dan for more.

 

 

April 20.24: Coping, but barely

What is that El Dorado

in deepest self avowed?

What world of could-be’s

beyond doubt’s cloud?

What firefly winks

over the mire of the mind,

trepidation and wonder

intertwined?

What calls to us,

sirensong in our veins,

like the moon to the tree,

in perpetual strains?

 

April 17.24: Coping, but barely

This morning I read a headline right here on my computer screen. It told me that there has been an unveiling — an unveiling, dear reader! — of a luxury jam product. I am not making that up.

Now setting aside what passes as a headline these days, let’s examine the notion of a luxury jam product. What’s the difference between a luxury jam and a luxury jam product? And what’s the difference between the jam in my refrigerator, which, at today’s inflated price, most certainly passes as a luxury, and something called a luxury jam product? I mean besides the obvious: the name on the label.

Suppose I unveiled Oddment’s Luxury Jam. Would the line of buyers stretch around the block? What if I paired it with Oddment’s Designer Bread? And how much more could I sell if I included a Going Out Of Business sign?

Back in the day, “luxury jam” was the stuff in the fruit cellar that hadn’t rotted in its Mason jar.

So, yet again, do I sip my morning coffee in a state of utter bewilderment.

 

April 16.24: Coping, but barely

In sudden crash and rattle,

like Monon through the wall,

the April shower blasted

its icy free-for-all.

With such a din and clatter,

so deafeningly unkind,

the caution: Now, if spring,

can winter be far behind?

 

April 12.24: Coping, but barely

Here is a bit of U.S. history, pertinent to some of us at this time.

1948, dear taxpayer:

   

 

There you have it, beginning to end, four pages: three for calculations, one for tax table. This, of course, excludes the instructions, which no doubt were as illuminating as the directions on these pages. I was only five at this point and didn’t notice such things, but as I grew older I learned to give Dad a wide berth at tax time. When he spread papers out on the table in the breakfast nook and held his head, we knew this was time to be respected almost as much as a Notre Dame game on television.

 

April 11.24: Coping, but barely

When you splat on the landscape

like a blob of red paint,

you have to admit

a chameleon you ain’t.

Camouflage isn’t

your thing, feathered flame;

nice try, but hide-and-seek

just isn’t your game.

 

 

April 2.24: Coping, but barely

Curled and lifeless remnants

of verdant summer past,

piled in brown haphazard

as wool to winter’s blast,

give way now to surgings

of supple green newborn,

to Bacchanalian clusters

and blast of sunny horn.

The party hats of spring

donned by stem and twig

declare the end of brown

and bounce in happy jig.

And now my consternation

in querulous note to you:

why does such depth of purple

show here as a beautiful blue?

 

Ah, the mysteries of photography. You must take my word for it, dear reader: the blue is really purple, and the golden yellow combined with that rich purple is hurting my arm as I pat myself on the back for transplanting these bulbs a couple years ago: the gardener’s gloat. (Ah. I hear at least one of you thinking you’ll get my gloat.)

 

 

March 23.24: Coping, but barely

The thundering herd emerges,

nests and burrows shake;

Miami ain’t got nothin’

on the partying pond’s spring break.

Indifferent to the heron,

careless of robin and jay,

they hog the warm pondside

elbowing squirrels away.

Hedonistic revelers,

greeting glad springtide,

Mama most the manic,

getting the kids outside.

 

 

March 22.24: Coping, but barely

Queen Anne at the threshold,

Queen Anne at the door,

Queen Anne stretching skyward —

what’s she looking for?

Unseemly for a regal

lacy-collared posy,

she’s peering in the windows —

how prosaically nosy!

 

Thanks again to Susan Rushton for another botanical personality!

 

March 19.24: Coping, but barely

Which hour, which day,

which year would you pawn?

A moment close by,

or a moment long gone?

And if it were gone

would you regretfully weep?

Would subsequent life

collapse in a heap?

Or without that time

would your life stand stronger,

with lighter heart,

healthier, longer?

Would anyone else

want that card from your deck,

or would it languish in dust

amid others’ dreck?

 

This part of the year brings my annual pondering: is Time a sentient being? Does Time KNOW?

Life goes on, we say, but I’m not sure about that. I think Time sometimes stops and enters into us as a deliberate, knowing cycle. We feel it deep down, sometimes only dimly aware, tired in spirit and wondering why. It’s Time. Time is aware even if we’re not.

Others say, “It’s the same for me!” No, it isn’t. The humanness of it might be the same, but no one has lived another’s Time.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.