Theater Season

I attend in any season
whatever its masquerade

green, white, golden-yellow
red, muddy, bleak or brown

accepting Beauty as my escort
with consequential abandon

never fatigued by its demands
to see the unfolding pageant

staged curtainless in the round
as four acts with infinite scenes.

Performance Art

Beyond the kitchen window
three male bluebirds
cavorting on a drab November day

feeding, flitting
among pink-berry clusters
on diminished spindle tree

momentary canvas
brilliant blue patches against pastels
moving through ornamental space

startling, intriguing
in artistic composition
as any museum masterpiece.

The Golden Fleece

I glimpsed this mythic prize
in forested proximity

dazzling panels of gold
fringed in scarlet and green

gloriously illuminated
through intersecting limbs

assembled by space and time
within observational grasp

no traveling o’er treacherous seas
or dueling with grotesque fiends

mine to experience
yet impossible to possess.

Political Flora

Wilted now
the campaign flowers

opportunistic species
tarting up the roadsides

once alluring
in coded colors

brash red, promised white
and action blue

then the morning after
selections all done

time to pluck
these importuning blooms.

Time Machine

Remember me
she twinkles
dark, delving eyes

remember me
she tosses
brown, swirly curls

remember me
she models
unattached lobes

remember me
she giggles
conspiratorial grin

ten-month-old facsimile
of grandmother-me
from sepia memory.

Hereditary Music

Fewer heartstrings
to play our lineal music

missing verses
of generational songs

unfamiliar melodies
with strange harmonies

without refrains
of consoling sounds

no longer pitch-perfect
the family choir

waiting now to sing
my wordless reprise.