May 7.22: Coping, but barely

This was me

and this was you,

our wings be-fuzzed,

mysterious, new.

Tipping, toppling,

learning where

we stopped and started,

unaware

of cliffs and quicksand,

Pandora’s box,

we braved the world

of thorns and rocks.

Or so we thought. The really brave

were those close by

who hovered and watched

with wary eye,

letting us learn

from life’s tough classes

even if we fell

on our little

ummm

grasses.

 

Tomorrow is Mothers’ Day here; I am not a fan. I think it’s become a national day of panic. But that does not mean I don’t value mothering. I absolutely do. There are many who mother even if they’ve never given birth, and I salute every one.

Please pardon the quality of the photo, dear reader. You probably, and rightly, guessed that I was hunched down behind Venetian blinds muttering to that baby to HOLD STILL. He didn’t. Mother Goose (so to speak) did not cast a benign eye on me.

 

 

June 9.21: Coping

Goose armada:

what a

lotta.

 

 

May 9.21: Coping

The world’s a big place,

it can tucker you out

when you’re trying to figure

what it’s about.

That doesn’t change much

as we age through the years,

those grass blades of life

still up to our ears.

We still need a wing

for safe featherbed,

but sometimes we rest

on a memory instead.

 

I’m not a big fan of Mothers’ Day, dear reader. However, I am a fan of mothering because mothering gets us started in life.

There are many who are not biological mothers but are mothers nonetheless. I salute every one, and I wish a happy day to all who mother.

On a more (typical) curmudgeonly note: you know, dear reader, I hate these geese; I do not thrill to see another generation. It is only with pained reluctance I am forced to say this snoozing fuzzball is maybe a little bit cute.

 

 

 

March 5.21: Coping

Do they think they sing?

Can they be so deluded

to imagine their noise

sounds dulcet and fluted?

Do they look in the mirror

and see sweet warbling wrens?

What’s in their water —

hallucinogens?

Each blats like a semi

but thinks it’s a peep?

I ponder this nightly

in honk-battered sleep.

 

 

January 17.21: Coping

The committee convenes

in officiousness large,

each of them sure

someone else is in charge.

 

 

January 9.21: Coping

Beneath fur and feather

it’s hard to judge pallor:

which will prevail,

discretion or valor?

 

In my pursuit of whether Shakespeare should be credited, I encountered a statement about things that annoy Shakespeare scholars.

I must say that Shakespeare scholars are easily annoyed.

October 9.20: Coping

She’s got her camera!

She’s out on her deck!

Flap your wing

and stick out your neck!

Shake tail feather

and follow me

in honking

photobombing V!

 

 

March 30.20: Coping

I stew in a pot of my juices

with only some mallards and gooses

to hear my complaint.

A pleasure I ain’t —

this, they say, they deduces.

 

February 29.20

This is why geese honk:

the ducks just sally on through,

in essence saluting the geese

with a “don’t-give-a-good-howdy-do.”

 

 

January 23.20

Aloneness

blade of a surgical wind

slices

the world

into shuddering parts.

Even the pond writhes

under one

solitary

goose

whose absurd solo honk

falls into the cold water

and drowns there.