There is yearning
in the looking up.
The unattainable,
marbled with secrets,
lures.
The gulls
in swooping arabesque
mock me with their indifference.
But still I reach.
There is that dream —
you know the one? —
Alone,
I soar,
scared and joyful,
lifted not by wings
but
(I think)
by self.
Thanks to photographer S.W. Berg for this beautiful capture.
Now has the grey come
and the year
heavy-lidded
drowses.
Crying of want
a solitary bird
spreads black wings
over silent houses.
You met them on September One
downy bobbleheads
now dusky gowned
tomorrow gone
on life’s relentless wingspreads.
Thanks again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives and Aviary.
Yesterday was sticky hot
the air was thick as mush
but I had to grab my camera
and get out there in a rush.
This visitor, this summer sprite,
this unabashed flirt,
demanded my
attentive eye
and mud upon my skirt.
But would he alight, becalm his wings?
Sit still for just a
mo?
No!
He just kept whirring
blurring
flitting to and fro.
I chased that Casanova
’round marigold and bee
and wondered if my neighbors
had a butterfly net for me.
Life spreads its wings
birthed from dark
indebted to craggy
matriarch.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives,
Vernon Hill Gallery.
My neighbors’ yards bejewelled
by April cloisonne
— tulips’ dazzling hues
bowing in the May —
shine more brightly
than does mine
with shyly clever
columbine.
In canny metamorphosis
it changes jester hat
for coronet of wings —
a tulip can’t do that!
As spring gives way to summer
and tulips sag to brown
my columbine laughs last
in green and ruffly mound.
Fuzzy thing
with little green wing
sightless
seeking light
plain deceptively
bursting imperceptibly
magenta
bunting’d tight.
Amid airy brambled brown
in twiggy knots
it hovers
this newborn green
like wings
in thickets.
Gone to leaf
in a blink
be quick-eyed
and see.
May you find new green today, dear reader. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
The wing
is the thing —
humanity’s crux.
Yearning to fly,
we invented books.
The book sculpture above is part of a place named (wrongly, I hope) The Last Bookstore.
It is in downtown Los Angeles.
