tiny coterie
summer toads wait in ambush
cycle is renewed
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Day 23. Very small rubber eraser translucent toads appear on the glass of my kitchen door each summer beginning their night hunting.
Category Archives: poetry
night lit
my woods are hung
with lamp lit moonlight
shallow beaver wash
turned into opal pools
picked out by
beams that launched
diffused through
vapor rings we know
are ice but touch
us softly
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Day 22. We have just had a full moon, fitting for the week of Earth Day.
I am
The wires look thin
that hold me up today
but they will do
it takes their strength
to float a legend’s frame
when truly whole
I knew my soul and name
before he ever did
I would be adventure
possibility bravery all of that
We left the Meadowlands
a river’s span away
from spiky city spires
and flew out over water
turning east and north
a winged pack mule
I was engined up packed
with so much fuel to keep us
out of clutching waves
it left him barely room to sit
he held the stick to fly us true
although his word was pilot
imagining he flew for history
and felt himself a hero
almost fledged
My engine and my wings
flew on god I was
brave and gallant
and did not let him down
when he lost heart
we reached the ocean’s end
on fumes crossing pitch dark
coastline almost out of spirit
he and I exhausted homing pigeons
on approach we coasted over
new green fields
to roars and cheers
and many dancing lights
He stepped down to claim his place
first as the upright man
I hoped he was
but empty of true heart
away from fame
pretending admiration
for an upraised arm that
spawned annihilation
he served us all behind the scenes
as we slid closer to another war
I hear he had great loss
knew sorrow and perhaps
was even humbled at the end
but I never felt
an inkling of that truth
now peaceful and alone
I am at rest suspended high above
the eager eyes or older memories
that know our history
and I bear witness
I am the spirit of St Louis
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Day 21. The prompt was to tell a famous myth through the eyes of a minor character. I chose a modern tale. (note: I have edited this poem tonight to correct my ill informed impression of Lindbergh’s “admiration” for the Third Reich, when in reality he was an agent of the US military, surveying the strength of axis air power. His personal life was a genuine mess, but I have only hinted at that.)
How to mend a fence
It all depends, the farmer said,
on how high the fence and wide the gap
How tall is just enough to push thoughts out
or hold emotions in, and had I thought of life
enriched by feelings? Is the gap a full on
crop of breaks, or something less
some oddly chronic stuttered disconnect
Fluorescence hindered by its oozing ballast
Can we glue chain split apart, or pickets
freed by loose, bent nails?
It all depends, the farmer said, on how we view
the things that we might do for love.
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Day 20. The prompt from NaPoWriMo Day 19. To write a didactic poem, instructional. No restraints.
haiku for shifting up
spring kept pace with sludge
now it’s pedal to the metal
life is greening fast
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Day 18.
Heart of the matter
heart (hart) n.
chambered, steady
quiet presence
headwaters
of love’s river
laced with
endearment
and courage
lost sometimes
mended often
freely given
always ready
for encounters
with joy
my soul lives there
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Day 17. A little behind, but no matter. A definition poem.
Formerly dear Molly
So it began
another opening salvo
written grapeshot,
sibling letters
masking fury longhand
weighted by a lifetime’s
alkaline asides,
presupposing mal intent
in every word,
an older generation
hamstrung by
paper clad
civility
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Day 16 of NaPoWriMo, where the prompt was an almanac poem, one of the items being a scrap of a letter. clearing out my family’s place in Rhode Island (emptying a place filling my soul) we found hundred of letters, one of which began “Molly, formerly dear Molly”. While I found this amusing, clearly the writer, and one supposes the recipient, did not.
doublets
pairs, twos
doubles, couples
subject defined
lifelong, sometimes
short-lived, one-offs
time refined
married, partners
exes, ohs
hearts aligned
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Day 15. The prompt was the notion of doubles.
San san for aggie
Sitting up her eyes meet mine
A dog, she cannot hold the stare
full of love, she can but try
trust earned, love gained a certain sign
My eyes smile back with soul laid bare
this gentle dog now surely wants to play
we run the grassy hill my dog and I
eyes search for sticks, she loves to lead the way
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Day 14. a san san, seven lines with three images or words repeated three times abc-abd-cd.
haiku for nearly
each day brings more green
apple tree buds grow fatter
the bear is nearby
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Day 12. each day brings us closer to an explosion of green. there are five bears up on the mountain flanks behind Bear Farm. they tend to visit this time of year.
respite
the wind has yet to shift
and racing out toward our spot
and green umbrella shade
I know the grainy sand
will burn until my feet delve down
to meet the remnants of
cool night and seepage
from a moon tide
long fled back toward the deeps
the slap of rope against
the few remaining masts
plays metronome for waves
that curl and thud
against the offshore gusts
quick voices giving way
to silent contemplation
of a prize well earned
small bodies bent to summer work
of finding crabs in shallows
rimmed by treasure rocks
and seaweed drifts
the simple arc of shore
embraces islet archipelagos
that make approach
by keeled or daggered boat
no easy thing
and at the western end
a point of land pokes out
its pines shaped by
prevailing ocean breath
it boasts a solid shingled house
set into skirts of green
downsweeping lawn
and chimneys waving
out to sea
the focus of siesta dreams
I try to live without regret
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Day 11. the prompt to closely describe an object or place and finish with an abstract line that seemingly has nothing to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.
Golden Hour
Consider the lilies Kim,
in the garden behind the moon.
Enchanted place
of skylines and horizons
outside our house of light.
Drifts of common birds
skim the river flow,
returning north
from life in mexico.
Following the imprint maps
of Prester John perhaps.
Light dimming,
the day’s play over,
our precious fairy book in hand
we turn for home.
The song of hiawatha
echoing like fog
upon the land.
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day 10. a book spine poem, of twelve titles, with my own words the glue.
Life With Horace 