Friday, November 25, 2011

Dreams of Flying

I envy birds their freedom to fly
at home in atmospheric spaces

tangential species instead am I
leashed to land and nearby air

until last night when I took flight
still secure in remembered sleep

a cage door opened to release
my dream-self wheeling freely

soaring with rapturous delight
escapee from gravity's tight grip.

Tricky Vision

Scanning glance
fixed glimpse
close-in focus

telescopic
macroscopic
microscopic

forest
trees
leaves

triple lens
for visual grasp
slowly revealing itself.

Daily Anniversary

Snuggled as one
in pillowed pod
before the dawn

suffused
infused with
soporific warmth

suspended
soon again
in the in-between.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Harbinger

A tiny jewel
perfectly shaped
on well-walked path

surrounded by green
luxuriant branches
fern-covered ground

pentagonal with stem
glittery bicolored
in scarlet and gold

acer rubrum leaf
in miniature
firstborn of the season.

Autumn's Orphan

Hastening her shedding
of dried-up, drab, yellow-brown leaves
before the color show begins

green functionality complete
no reason to hang around
not candidate for understudy role

unwanted outlier
to familiar cast of characters
ready to appear in autumn's drama

instead...first to bare her limbs
to Indian summer warmth
before submitting to winter's sleep.

Fall Foliage #10

Watching Nature work
in her photography lab
developing fall foliage

first with pastels
pale yellows mixed with orange
in a sea of lemon-green

next with watercolors
washes of brighter hue
drenching the hillsides

finished in rich oils
with dramatic, lush tones
of Renaissance splendor

fixed with digitizing clarity
as memory sheets
for bulging, autumnal album.

Before It Falls

Shall I pluck it
place in a vase
before it falls

my reddening talisman
still clinging tightly
to Autumn's stage

I touch its glowing surface
with growing attachment
each passing day

and feel its summer pulse
inside leafy veins
slipping away

no, I will not interrupt
its last communing
before it separates.

Delicious Memory Scents

I close my eyes and remember with my nose

freshly-cut grass with its cousin hay
balsam fir needles heated by the sun
muddy tidal marshes bathed in salty air
crushed wintergreen, sweet fern fronds
aromas of wild grapes and scuppernongs
rosa rugosa, yellow jasmine
smell of snow, lilacs in the spring
and wood smoke beckoning me back home.

evocative gifts stored as memory jolts.

Interlopers in Iceland

Balanced on the mid-Atlantic ridge
at its landlocked singularity

left feet on North American plate
right on Europe's creeping-away crust

just two of us, an Adam and Eve
straddling a planetary seam

transported back in terrestrial time
to a rough and restless Eden

interlopers in exotic, gothic gardens
untainted by human habitation.

Spectral Fall Flora

Fragile, skeletal remains
purples, pinks, blues, yellows
all bleached out

ghostly, roadside brigades
fireweed, asters, goldenrod
still with distinctive silhouettes

waiting, waiting, waiting
to be laid to rest
by winter's deep snows.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Fall Foliage #9

Slightest hint of blush upon her cheek
pinkish with orange tinge

perhaps a bit discomfited
for losing summer's youthful green

some wrinkles now across her brow
from shriveled-up excitements

yet satisfaction emanates
as if recalling play beneath her leaves

a gentle quivering follows
presaging ecstasy and loss

soon to happen in the next act
explosive beauty, then oblivion.

Blue-Eyed Daughter

Morning glory blue
star sapphires
a New Mexico sky

not pale baby blue
translucent orbs
washed-out pastel

luminous gems
high-value hue
Scandinavian blue

cool's opposite
charismatic warmth
all-embracing blue.

Composite Son

Your face
a magnet for me
dark hair
dark eyes
piece of nose
mine
from grandmother Roberta
great-grandfather Lee

Dad's brow
cheekbones
chin
chiseled look
through grandfather Joe
great-great-grandfather Claus

traceable sweetness
to Meares/Mahaffey strand
congenial nature
a Jordan gene
inclusive heart
from unknown forebear

composite you
genetic pieces
puzzled together
into handsome mosaic
from South and North
England, Wales, Hibernia
Sweden, Prussia, France
and perhaps, Imperial Rome.

Covered Wagon Train

Just one, long, Penske rental truck
hitched to low-slung, car-loaded trailer
heading west to California's growing fields

three abreast on cab's bench seat
driver, rider with sleeping canine between
fixated on advancing asphalt strip

the sky's the same
for these cross-country travelers
as for those before with pioneering courage

difficult to lose the trail now
with dashboard navigator
rooms, food, diesel fuel easily tracked down

still an odyssey of sorts
with daunting, traffic challenges
if no surprise Indian attacks and possible starvation

a different, settling future beckons
another young, optimistic family
attracted to wished-for promises of the Golden State.

Farewell to an Old Friend

Crown-heavy
it toppled in last week's hurricane
an old botanical friend

for decades unnumbered
shaded myriad passers-by
beneath its wide, green plumage

in every season
exchanged silent greetings
with its temporary tenants

a fixed magnificence
cut down to inconsequential stump
marker for its long-lived service

an obvious absence
quickly unnoticed now
by this once-close roadside associate.

In the Beginning

Suspended in blackest black
encapsulated within moonless night
standing on Kilauean lava

rendered almost blind
except for feeble, flashlight beam
beneath a pitch-dark, star-stitched sky

panicky, scanning anxiously
for any evidentiary light
in the null and void blankness

then creation glimpsed
distant sliver of fiery orange
as in the planet's beginnings.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Fellow Songster

At dawn's starting light
a robin begins his day
assertively vocalizing

happy for his daily stage
improvising few-note tunes
never for applause

lacking operatic timbre
exults in solo status
in suburban garden

mentors in many ways
merrily chirping verses
not always in perfect pitch

bolsters my resolve
to compose the poetry
singing loudly in my soul

soon my fellow songster
will fly away from winter
while I must keep rehearsing.



Panic Time

The sky is falling fast
cascading stocks and credit swaps
lost value with every splatter

time to run to imagined hills
with alchemized accounts
and mattress-ripened money

or.....to stick around and see
if we manage not to slip
on this global banana peel

my tactical, strategic plan
to relax, savor hoarded cache
of chocolate bars and fine champagne.

Ego and Existence

Insignificant transients are we
hitching rides on Terrestrial Earth

blindly exploring the interstices
of our Cosmic Triviality

dodging obstacles, catastrophes
among competing Random Forces

juggling seductive wrongs with right
in this vast Imagined Ethos

chasing extravagant, gilt-edged dreams
before collision with Indifferent Death.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

North Woods Orgy

Swarming from all directions
squadrons assemble
at the starting line

hordes of flying jaws
probing proboscises
geared for lightning-quick strikes

high-pitched excitement
shivering the air
as feast time arrives

doors open
disgorging again
giant, warm-blooded chunks.

Idea Snatcher

Slippery as eels
at the edge of consciousness

firmly grasped
clearly formed
deconstructed
reconstructed
into ringing phrases
set aside
not available
to morning memory

often the fate
of unsnared catches.

What Is

To see what is
is wisdom
for living this life

easy to miss
looking always
for the familiar

to see what's not
keeps sameness
echoing through the soul.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Empty Swing

Motionless
it waits
anticipatory
for memory-boy
soaring skyward
fixed now in amber-time

he's gone
flown away
launched from highest arc
towards California dreams
leaving us to push
his Peter-Pan shadow.

Sages of Rockport

Rows and rows of stories
laconically writ
as beginnings and ends

stone tablets presiding
over layers of time
inlaid with love and pain

nestled closely to others
perhaps standoffish
when once upon their lives

joys long forgotten
troubles overcome
merry voices stilled

now silent choir of whisperers
'breathe deeply, prithee
of this sweet, seaside air.'

Butterfly House

Iridescence reigns
along scalloped paths
of flutter-by designs

painted ladies
blue morphos
among flamboyant peers

assembled inside
behind closed doors
a splendid garden

tucked away
from highway view
as meditative space

invisible threads
lead to flying dots
in a maze of thoughts

unraveling self
simplifying life
as mindful exercise

transposable spirits
caged, commingling
on another plane.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Another Chapter

The end, unbidden,
for another chapter

sudden, abrupt
unexpected

terms and conditions
destabilizing

losses mounting
gains less so

steady erosion
of social edifice

perhaps the next
less subtraction.

Genealogy Mole

I dig underground
deep, deeper
into labyrinthian time

prospecting, mining
sifting through dated shreds
for ancestral secrets

tunneling blindly
along dead-ended tracks
until one is not

unlocked
a faintly lit chamber
with storied family treasure.

Between the Cracks

Through which crack should I look today
to glimpse the intentions of the universe

where ants live
the chipmunk stores its seeds
woodpeckers hunt for lunch

through invisible cracks

where love meets hate
accidents wait to happen
a fractured soul tries again

or through some quixotic one

at the top of the nearest rainbow
where space and time converge
gravity meets anti-gravity

I peer through all of the above and see
the universe looking back at me
with shaking-head sadness and bitter regret.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Spring Again

Timid snowdrops
white heads bowed
in case of blizzard

nearby phallic
optimistic shoots
of daffodils

pale crocuses
blooming carefully
in occasional array

fast greening grass
yellowish forsythia
budding red maples

rebelling against
persistent chill
of northeast winds

spring
fashionable again
in its barest apparel.

Easter Egg Hunt

Eager seekers-in-waiting
on marks for whistled start

rapid, random scattering
bee lines to likely sites

ovals spotted, snatched
with seductive success

each surprise discovery
another jackpot win

pastel-colored stashes
filling memory baskets

childhoods overlapping
for hunters and hiders.

Awaiting the Storm

Sporadic advance
of snow-flocked air

late April storm
at north woods camp

snugly ensconced
with loaded woodstove

intimate company
of husband and dog

a Frost anthology
snow-cached champagne

front-row seating
for nature's drama

encased within
white isolation

panoramic stillness
a privileged event.

Little Miss Blooming

Refreshed innocence
as snowdrops

random charms
of croci

sunny daffodils'
eager smile

merry abandon
of dandelions

cut tulips'
amusing antics

apple-blossom potential
trailing forsythian frills.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

New Mexico Reprised

Welcomed back
by clarifying light

needy, fresh eyes feast
on unclaimed nature

tufted vegetation
holds restless sands together

rocky-red, pastel mesas
stand artfully arranged

against chiseled silhouettes
of shrouded mountainscapes

all displayed in grand expanse
of epic, high-desert vistas

the bigness beckons
with timeless consolation

my spirit lifts again
on bluest-sky kite tail.

Out-of-Whack World

Cause on one planet
effect now on another

uncivil demagogues
with Orwellian scripts

facts dismissed
data without reason

upside-down logic
cynically twisted

creationism in
climate change out

resources deemed infinite
more billionaires needed

militarism cheered
environment in tatters

rationality denounced
drawn, quartered, and killed.

Only Beauty

No truth exists
except for Beauty

only constant
among elusive virtues

others fungible
subject to human change

muddled into
crass mediocrity

alas, even Beauty
sometimes succumbs.

Re-Invention

Massive white dunes creep northeastward
blown on relentless southwest winds

erasing vast, black lava plain
atop rifted, high-desert valley

collapsed from lofty mountains
once beneath a salty sea

all wrought as geologic blinks
in parade of anarchic change

reinventing the planet's face
in small to monumental spaces

nature's restless, experimental quest
still with stacks of masks in waiting.

Monday, January 31, 2011

In Family Memoriam

1969
1977
1981
1984
1991
2001
2005
2010
2010.