June 12.20: Coping

A snoop amid the boughs

beady-eyed, proctorial,

sizes up my gardening

with aspect territorial.

 

 

December 21.19

STOPPING BY A THOUGHT ON A SNOWY MORNING

People are weird.

Therefore, I, being people, am weird. Do you know, dear reader, how I sifted myself through the Venetian blinds, trying to get a good photo of this brilliant visitor? There are countless images of cardinals in the snow. Why, then, did I work so hard to photograph yet one more cardinal on one more snowy branch? Because at that moment it was MINE. A crimson splotch in a pristine cottony new-snow pouf, something wonderful — and fleeting — opposite MY window.

Maybe this is just one kind of weirdness. Maybe not everyone has the same intractable instinct to hold an image or a moment. Do we write or grab for the camera (or brush or wheel or dough scraper or needle and thread) because some of us have an invisible arm which must reach out to capture what we see and save it?

Maybe it isn’t what we see that compels. Maybe it’s what we feel when we see it. Maybe it’s the feeling we want to grab and hold.

Maybe it’s weird to wonder about it at all.

On the more practical side, my Venetian blinds got partially dusted.

 

January 16.19

 

Excuse me, Eminence.

I really must ask:

do you think you’re hiding

because of the mask?

Incognito

with that wing?

Camouflage

is not your thing!

You’re subtle

as an advertisement,

the scarlet feather

of self-aggrandizement.

 

 

With apologies to Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Connections: February 8.17

The other day I happened upon

a forum on NPR

a rabbi’s words illumined

a mood as black as tar:

when optimism can’t be had

we must insist on hope,

and keep in mind the difference

as we walk this slippery slope.

I opened the window this morning

Die Zauberflöte silvered the air!

the crimson Papageno,

the high-headed Chanticleer!

Corny it may be

but I need to think it so

the return of morning birdsong

as rabbinical treetop echo.

Connections