Today's Gifts

Wrapped in lovely lavender
patch of wild geraniums

pots of dandelion gold
arranged in ragged rows

indiscriminate white bluets
scattered in mille-fleur style

promise of delicious fruits
hid in strawberry blooms

sweet, duet encounter
warbling with yellowthroat

surprise scarlet flashes
two redwings wheel beside

glittery black squirrel
dashing by from Wonderland

rich Christmas harvest
gifted one random May day.

Spring Break at Arnold Arboretum

Doubly, triply bosomed
syringa vulgaris

luscious, grapelike clusters
hanging pendulously down

magnets for easy grabbing
free caresses for the taking

soft, alluring cleavages
seductively perfumed

ready-to-fondle blooms
on their lilac mistresses.

Alice's Magic Shop

Overstuffed with magic potions
lustrous flasks, thick jars and pots
necessary for alterations

trays of abracadabra tools
hot wands, exotic clippers
for prestidigitative touch

strange contraptions against the walls
wired for white-rabbit treatments
in mad-hatted, séance sessions

in glittering cape the maestro reigns
with splendid sleight-of-hand panache
unmatched as hair-design magician

Alice’s patrons always the fairest
admiring of their Snow-White selves
in her miraculous mirror.

Leaf Birds

Familiar visitors
overstaying winter
hopping, skipping, flipping

always brown
field-marked with curly wingtips
flying with the wind

one warm spring day
all raked away
returning with the fall.

Apocalyptic Hint

No blood-curdling screams
mushrooming clouds
just quiet exits for bats and bees

no crustal shivers
raging atmospherics
yet sudden demise of bats and bees

without loud alarums
somber tolling of bells
only death-bed whispers from bats and bees

species silence
then dominos more
with exponential momentum.