August 12.23: Coping, but barely

The summer lazies,

slow-pulsed,

careless,

crooning under the leaves,

tickling them upside-down,

come again

in glint of web,

in the sleepy still pond,

on its back,

watching sky theater,

billowy restless mimes,

themselves their audience

in pond’s glass.

One cicada

sings out,

rusty lusty note,

so urgent his word:

late.

Summer bears its time

in fruit and drooping leaf,

in weighted vine,

in sun-crumbles of pollen,

pages purple-edged

slowly turned to soft

iambic coda.

 

If you were lucky, dear reader, like me, somewhere in your early years you had summer moments when it was just you and the sky and the tops of trees.

If we’re still lucky, we remember.

 

September 13.20: Coping

Silver lining:

wishful trust,

wooden nickels,

pixie dust.

And yet that which

I can’t deny:

white hot silver

in the sky.

 

Thanks yet again to photographer Emily Berg Baine.

 

August 27.20: Coping

Upturned

to its cousin the cloud

like porcelain saucer

does each white flower

catch the spill of sun.

 

 

August 1.20: Coping

If I could befriend watercolor

and dip my brush into a sunset,

I would capture this

with scrupulous palette.

Then again, if I did,

and caged it in a frame.

how deluded would I be

to think it looked the same?

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

 

 

 

 

 

July 12.20: Coping

My muse! Impertinent,

wayward thing!

Taunting me

on mighty wing!

Graceful she,

in bluest height,

indifferent

as I try to write.

I watch her float,

from earth unbound,

while I, like stone,

am stuck to ground.

In those clouds

vocabulary,

eloquence

extraordinary.

She could bring it

to cloddish me,

but prefers to soar

metaphorically.

July 5.20: Coping

From a purpling east

in pompadoured peach

toward twilight sun

they’ll never reach —

no matter: in beauty

airy, narcotic

they revel in being

 purely quixotic.

 

 

June 27.19

Storm tinctured

ocean plies its blue

like cathedral window

unknowable mystery

ungraspable hue.

Soaring, long-winged birds

marvel in their way

borne on air and wonder

opalescent swirl above

liquid sapphire under.

 

Many more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

 

 

Disconnections: July 24.18

Some of us know it

from school days gone by

the rarified glow

of a holycard sky.

Angels and saints

no laggards allowed

canopied ever

by holycard cloud

its edges alive

with a peachy-gold hue

it had to be thus —

plain white wouldn’t do.

It all seemed marshmallowy

pretend, and ideal,

but I see it right now

undeniably real.

 

A word about holycards: they were tokens of acknowledgement given out in Catholic schools ever so long ago. They all depicted role models. Kind of like baseball cards but more flowy. And with lilies. In that time a coveted laurel.

 

 

Disconnections: June 24.18

A willing suspension

of everything,

deliberate slow reach

daring, cautious quest

rising skyward from some restless molecule

within —

if you’re lucky

the grass prickles your back

clover tickles your heels

summer earth pillows your head

if you’re good at it

you seem mere debris

senseless —

the fine art of watching clouds

is not quickly attained.

Practice.

 

 

Disconnections: June 8.18

Platinum gild

on buttermilk sky

no wonder Icarus

flew too high.