How it sizzles,
this maple,
brazen in the sunset,
each blazing leaf
a crackle
like the fire in a hearth
spitting embers,
bodaciously sassing the sun.
A note, dear reader: many years ago, oh, so many, I was advised never to use a series of sibilant sounds. Which, as you can tell, is a rule that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I thought of it as I wrote that last line and reveled in my rebellion. It sounds like a leaky tire, but I like it.
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.
Sunless spring,
summer clogged with mud,
daily outlook darkened
with endless storm and flood,
so rare the light of sunset,
the pond cannot believe its eye,
and stops in breathless wonder
to return it to the sky.
Lingering
a reluctant sun
releases day
leaf by leaf
pensive
wondering
what night
is like.
Sky fire
in water’s glass
call and response
of muted brass
vesper choir
decrescendo’d
blazing fading
diminuendo’d
what has been
what’s to come
day or year
the pendulum.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
How careful the measure
precise the line
homage to protractor
prim paradigm.
How dreamily smeared
the day’s slow faint
burnished random
fingerpaint.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Between the slats
through sparkly drops
athwart the storms
over wet housetops
from blazing close
of day’s disposition
I salute
the trusty preposition.
The world last night
was awash in gold
a molten sunset
blindingly toled.
Weightless lava
plating all,
transient karats
on my wall.
India ink
latticed
over cloudblush
thousand-fingered hands
outstretched
addio to sunset flush.
Thanks yet again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Oddments 