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.