The endless rains
hour after hour
make the choice moot:
bath or a shower?
If you’re not too picky
about mud ‘twixt your toes,
you can have both
while washing your clothes.
The endless rains
hour after hour
make the choice moot:
bath or a shower?
If you’re not too picky
about mud ‘twixt your toes,
you can have both
while washing your clothes.
outside my door
sodden, spongey
barren bore.
It’s a sky of mud
dark and flat
spitting drip
and dribble and splat.
No light, no color
etc., et al.
so I turn my eyes
to Southern Cal.
Lifting me
to brilliant blue
this silver bonfire
makes me new.
Or is it wave
or maybe wing?
It doesn’t matter;
the sun’s the thing.
In such an image
the light’s outreach
touches me
in winter’s breach.
This bleak faux spring
is quite escapable
as long as I am
daydream-capable.
Many thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives and the curator thereof for this wonderfully warming photo.
and breathed way deep
the pre-dawn air
thick with sleep
drizzles had left it
soft and warm
very
un-January
not the norm
though wistful for spring
I understood
that January’s mud
smells almost as good.
take utmost care
let the roots
grow everywhere
fertilize with traditions
from Grandma’s haversack
but mostly give her space
and just stand back.
with setbacks and travails
calloused knees and splinters
blackened fingernails
but then there is the heart-stop
electric, luminous
when something perfect happens
golden, numinous.
a pool, a puddle, drip
the world’s an invitation
to slurp and splash and sip.
Mud’s the universal
weeds hold us in thrall
we slump and slog dejected
abandoned by old Sol.
be it ever so terran
a burrow’s a castle
if it’s yours for spring lairin’.
Cool muddy counterpane
perfect day bed
were it not for the neighbors
who stomp overhead.
Summerwet
this air of spring
porridge-thick
heavy
choking
Cats and dogs
they say
the rain pelted,
slowed to lazy,
now hovers
in drip
and wilt
Free facewash
no towel
— patience —
awaiting
bug lick
Too wet
to stand
too heady
the quaff
not to nod over
into mud bath
Too wet
not to clamber
curling
from lightless places
through cracks
holding to
burled
pebbles
Wet enough
for changeling
— lily to bromeliad —
slurping rain
downleaf
for safekeeping
Wet enough
to gather
midrib
mercurial domes
quaked
by breath
of showery breeze
Against a thirsty future
the earth gulps
and saves
Meanwhile
a rainbow