In winter
I dream of such greens/
in lazy pools and streams
of shadow,
indolent,
sleepy,
like deep breathing
of quiet ocean/
in yellowed splotches
of summer’s hooray,
warm with memory
of sprinkler jumping,
chigger scratching,
shrilling
ready or not!
from neon popsicle mouths,
like the clover-drunk
sun-crazed bees
in happy ferment/
until,
panting,
we fall into that shade pool
and the green seeps into
our dreams.
What little green
there is to be seen
on this St. Patrick’s Day
so I send this link
to a post I think
says green, too-loo-ra-lay.
When July comes out to play,
bouncing on trampoline leaf,
climbing monkey bar stems,
sliding down the smooth
shiny pepper,
cartwheeling,
hopscotching,
hide-and-seeking in
herb tunnels,
and no one knows
how green the world can be
until the hot light leap-frogs
over itself
and we wish we could snatch it
this limpid summer air
but
unpossessable
it mocks
catch me if you can!
like childhood,
then does the garden dapple
make us stop
to fetch a memory.
The shade that’s cast by brick and steel
cannot in peace compare
to shade endowed by green —
susurrous emerald air.
It cools the soul and slows the heart
pares our excess ways
says “only this” and makes us stop
to gather up our somedays.
May green be yours, dear reader,
though winter’s not quite gone;
may you see some signs of springtime
and catch a leprechaun.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, dear reader!
With a shillelagh salute to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives,
Vernon Hill Gallery.
Tug-of-war
winter, spring
back and forth
whipsawing
between the blasts
of icy air
odd reprieves
of mild and fair
scorning fierce
and frigid spasms
pops of green
enthusiasms.
Hey, little bug! Do you know why you’re green?
So you can sit on a leaf and not be seen!
Yet here you are
appendicular
neon
on my screen.
Where are your bug wits? You should be more sly
hiding from hungry robin’s eye.
Is it just
that you must
touch
that raspberry sky?
Is one enough?
I’d have to say yes
the violet twinkles
to acquiesce:
“I am the Only
a fragile bit of blue
but I can halt a writer
in her tracks —
can you?”
From soil’s night,
