Memory Tree

Enchanted icon
recapturing the magic
of a long-ago fantasy

brightly festooned
in tangible measures of time
masquerading as colorful baubles

     old world St. Nicholas
     antique, red glass balls
     petit point heirlooms

     cross-stitched holiday designs
     a Tiffany silver snowflake
     Polar Express souvenir bells

     miniature Fenway Park
     kid-crafted ornaments
     gilded sweetgum balls

     Pawley's Island sand dollar
     Panamanian mola
     Alpine edelweiss

     re-tied, red yarn bows
     crystal reindeer mobile
     Sidney's memorial bell

each a treasure
with particular intent
composing a lovely story

cherished connections
to this seven-decade life
still giving comfort and joy.

Self-Portrait at Almost Seventy

A certain tipping point
at Life's summit
looking back clearly
with unveiled eyes
and looking to proceed
into the shadowy abyss

crossover point
questing done
every rainbow chased
cashing in now
all my favorite pots of gold
for stacks of well-savored moments

inflection point
older to elder
slowing ever so slightly
to more observant pace
exultant in the familiar present
blinded still to insidious Time.

Motion Machine

Perpetual
constant
on the move

up
down
in-between

crawling
walking
in discovery gait

reaching in
pulling over
exploring every

many Everests
undaunted
master of his world.

What I Hear

On this autumn morning
Canada geese squawk
in advancing formation

neighborhood birds
perhaps wren and nuthatch
exchange conversation

single red squirrel
dominates
with clucking chatter

commuter traffic
lumbering school bus
announce mechanical noise

quiet intersperses
quite harmoniously
if carefully listened for.

Fall Foliage #13

Prayer flags unfurled
in flutter abundance
across color-rich hillsides

strung along flimsy limbs
of maple, birch and aspen
streaming cheerily in the wind

extending invitation
with magnetic attraction
for autumnal communion

restorative moments
for filling up the soul
with necessary nourishment.

Fall Foliage #14

Post-peak foliage in falling mode
stirred up in colorful flurries

unsettled in swirling heaps
drifting into carpet layers

romp-ready for kicking feet
fall's relics crunched beneath

last salute to season's drama
curtain descends until green again.

Dancing Duo

Yellow leaves all a-quiver
shimmying tremulously
within gentlest zephyr

twisting, spinning
right then eager left
catching sunlit glints

trembling aspen
like its quaking namesake
sashaying with the wind.

Smiley Face

A ten-thousand-watt smile
with crinkly eye appeal
seizes surrounding affections

a gobbling-up grin
chews and munches hearts
into more adoring pieces

a gleeful giggle-machine
incites contagion
of spontaneous joy

his merry-go-round
sweetly flings out
hugs and big, wet kisses

a happy face embraces
gilding for golden instant
our quotidian stage.

Comfort Rocks

The rocks beckon
with meditative comfort
beside the abiding sea

too large for prayer beads
solace nonetheless
within their rounded heft

soothed by solidity
I feel free to exercise
my cosmic affiliation

anchored to land
roaming the ocean vista
embraced by all-inclusive sky

philosophy falls away
no explanations needed
to understand existence.

Grand Central Station

Densely packed, dark specks seething
in several directions
among an occasional red
that stops the moment
then switches on again
and the hordes horde
the throngs throng
in the manner of Brownian motion.

Museum Passage

Ethereal this
imagined that

garish trees
dark, blocky rocks

flat-faced portraits
from shared gene pool

banal tools
arranged, labeled
lying impotent
without hands and feet

too many ships
in tarnished light
plying the waters
of languid seas

canvas overstuffed
with lobster traps
ensnares as one falls
promptly off the stack.

Fall Foliage #12

Bored with summer-green fashions
Mother Nature's ready
for sassy, new fall apparel

darker shades bleached first
for comely, chartreuse look

dabs of bold, brash scarlet
added on for random charm

tie-dyed, rainbow spirals
flung across her forest-dress

complemented soon after
with rich batiks of somber bronze

now Mother Nature's wearied
of changing and adjusting
her lush, autumnal ensemble.

Trial by Conscience

I   Indictment

Wrestling with family histories
exhumed in genealogical digs

darker plots found entangled
within slavery's iniquitous web

muted now are heroic imaginings
of long-ago ancestor stories

escapees from brutish poverty
in perilous, ship-tossed transits

come to hack out autonomous lives
at edges of Edenic wilderness

obsessed to own new-world land
free from British feudal bondage

clans patrilineal and matrilineal
settled on unclaimed tracts

in South Carolina's piedmont
and on North Carolina's coastal plain

there seventeen family households
traded their souls for immoral gain

reaping cash from tobacco and cotton
with labor of African-American slaves

starkly tallied in national censuses
from 1790 to emancipation

catalogued as well in estate accounts
and wills as only first-name chattel.

II  Mea Culpa

Now I know...now I know
this inhumanity taints my blood

I must and will bear witness
against this past abomination

I acknowledge, regret, abhor
all hurtful, humiliating acts

wrought with despotic white-power
by my slave-owning forebears

as their present voice and conscience
I offer too-long-withheld remorse

and posthumous apologies to Sissyfus,
Mosley, Berry, Wade, Reuben, Hannack,

Rebecca, Sara, Long Jack, Short Jack,
Cindia, Mattie, Haywood, Lucy, Annie,

Sukey, Dinah, Caster, Rouse, Gatsey,
Dick, Sohee, Old Titch, Jimmy, Rose,

Judah, Moses, Winne, Esther, Cato,
Abraham, Peter, Sarah, Lyd, Phil, Boe,

Nelius, Sam, Clary, Beck, China, Ben,
Patience, Dave, Fanney, Bob, Hannah,

Punch, Amos, Jacob, Little China, Tom,
Poll, Washington, Daniel, Nelly, Rachel,

York, Avey, Noel, Lewis, Dave, Elveda,
and all the unknown, unnamed others.

III  Verdict 

Be it affirmed and declared again
in the name of all Humanity

here to far-distant, global places
for now into the enduring future

all people of any gender and color
are of necessity created Equal

endowed with certain unalienable,
secure, unequivocal, categorical,

protected, defended, inviolable,
absolute, immutable, sacrosanct,

self-evident Rights of Life, Liberty,
and the protean Pursuit of Happiness.

Lost in Poetry Dystopia

Who will memorize postmodern poetry
essayed lines without rhyme or rhythm

chock-full of hanging metaphors
blended into stranger fantasies

problematical to understand
alienated from this reader's grasp

hallucinatory glimpses of something
extraneous to everyday mazes...

where are the dictated paths not taken
endless fields of golden daffodils

grieving lilacs beside the dooryard
narrow fellows in tall, wayward grasses

candles burning swiftly from both ends
love's labors lost in liquefied clothes

feathered things in wordless choruses
darkling plains and ravens everywhere...

why more and more rhapsodic verses
swapped for Jabberwockian leaps

distorted by uber-cubist visions
crammed with kaleidoscopic shards

of fractured contexts, oblique precedents
and densely elliptical idioms

all pounded, pressed, precipitated
into exquisite morass of tangled language.

River Clock

River clock
tick-tocking by

floating debris
in fixed motion

downy feathers
flower petals
fallen leaves
fractured ice
life-seeking seeds

flowing onward
watched or not

to next hour
season and cycle.

Celestial Sensation

Waiting, waiting
for promised signal
from celestial heights

gazing, gazing
with eager scan
for glow-in-the-dark display

hoping, hoping
for cosmic surprise
in black, star-ridden sky

waiting, waiting
gazing upward
anticipating...

...a moment flares
in splendid silence
across Pegasus' Great Square.

Mid-August Blush

To the penetrating eye
of this wilderness aesthete

I see a dark-green canvas primed
on the opposite mountainside

ripening well in mid-August
under late summer's cooling sun

ready for autumnal washes
to paint its color-changing phases

now just slightest, pastel hint
of suggestive, pinkish tinge

a faint glaze over textured treetops
soon to show off Fall's rampant palette.

Connectedness

The throaty trill
of the loon
haunts, thrills
with its wild aloneness
summoning my soul
to ponder unremembered moments

echoed now
in toddler's gleeful trill
discovering his new world
of alluring prospects
with ear still tuned
to unknown, sung-before songs.

A La Carte

Not yet toothy
but hunger bites

food attracts
beyond the breast

menu expands
with bits and pieces

mashed banana
bland rice wafers

creamy egg salad
peanut butter dabs

satisfying treats
for eager palette

gnawable corn cobs
watermelon pops

and pièce de résistance

sweet-buttered, tongue-sticky grits!

Where, O Where?

Turned away from video visit
determined not to see
Mémé and Pep leave again

too many good-byes

final or otherwise
for his five-year-old heart

his dog-pal died
then much-loved Baba
harsh blows to a little boy's soul

where have they gone
will I ever see them again
why not...why not?

Paternal Bond

My father's long dead
nearly forty-five years

his kind nature
embraces still

a tactile connection
remains in hand

genetic perhaps
our common habit

rolling up waste papers
into throwaway balls

with each repetition
my childhood smiles back at me.

Sweetest Little Thang

Smorgasbord of goodies
embedded in
those scrumptious cheeks
munchable cream puffs
tasty from ear to ear
in lip-smacking smooches

gimme some, gimme some
spoonfuls of Max's sugah

his teeth-aching sweetness
in southern accents
of Krispy Kremes
pecan pralines
Mississippi mud pie
peach upside-down cake

gimme some, gimme some
pounds of Max's sugah

honey-coated
roly-poly limbs
fingers and toes
as candied delights
all amply supplied
at this ambrosial feast

gimme some, gimme some
heaps and heaps of Max's sugah.

Extreme Change Agents

Hypocritical arrogance
or arrogant hypocrisy
labeling others
invasive species

opportunistic us
plundering hordes
greedy reapers
commoditizing the planet

entitled possessors
ravishing Nature's beauties
wreakers of habitat chaos
for ultra-extravagant comforts

no predatory defenses
against homo sapiens' blitz
except, perhaps, quite likely
our own self-destructive selves.

Diminution

Against my degenerative time
I have mined
substantial, creative nuggets

perfect, precious, rounded
honed in mind
with mystical empiricism

next came sparkling flakes
of luminous kind
artfully sieved for revelations

winnowing now for smaller, shiny pieces
sorted into lines
gently lapping at thinking's edge

soon just bits of golden dust
left behind
within my muse's grasping reach.

How to Explain Death

Shedding of used-up husk
for fresher skin and feathers
of flower blooms, butterflies
or soaring eagle
touching the sky

welcomed chance
to know abundant life
as death generously
resurrects us
in different disguises

its overwhelming stillness
whispers to those
abruptly left behind
of memory-lives
that will never end to them.

How to Explain Life

Is it...

a failed magic trick
or glorious one

sensory playground
or shadowy fiction

mix of emotions
throttled by instinct

biochemical experiment
running its course

or blank slate of probabilities
with luck-of-the-draw winners?

I breathe
I eat and drink
I see, hear, feel, smell, taste
I lust
I love
I laugh and cry
I play and work
I reap and sow
I think
I imagine
I read and compose
I celebrate with others
I glory in nature
I soar and fall
I retreat
I sleep
I dream
I die and, perhaps, dream again.

Is it...

the universe's gift
or a cosmic joke

a straight line to nothingness
or regenerating spiral

a single imperative
for creative expression

blinded consciousness
craving comprehension

or exhilarating merry-go-round
spinning faster to oblivion?

Music Appreciation Class

First woodpeckers percuss
loudly across the bog

redwings screak and call
in back-and-forth rhythms

subtle peeper chorus
chants sweetly at hearing's edge

solo mallard flies over
quacking in syncopated time

sundry songbirds enter
at high and medium pitch

robins chirp warm-up notes
not yet in operatic timbre

alto-assertive wood frogs
insist with charming dissonance

bass croaks from bullfrogs missing
too early in the concert season

parent geese in squawking section
hurry me past their marshy nests

I pause again along the bogside
to sort out these euphonious sounds.

Flower Song

Wordsworth's daffodils
sang for me today
in lilting color

ten thousand strong
bright, sunny faces
in hillside chorale

mixed harmonies
in yellow, orange, and white
of gentle sublimity

soundless cantata
carefully composed
for blooming crescendo.

Southwest Palette

Pink and blue moments
encountered everywhere

shades of Picasso
certainly of O'Keeffe

rosy rocks, soil, adobe
bloom in random unity

startling azure flashes
streak past high-desert scrub

steep, pastel canyon walls
cavort with sapphire patches

freshly washed arroyos
pale-colored, sculpted cliffs

embrace joyously
amidst this cerulean feast

beauty everlasting glimpsed
while waiting with the ravens.

Southern Comfort

Genuine niceness
learned and practiced
as gentleness
mixed with kindness
extended to me
anonymous white person
by several black hostesses
at different kiosks
in the Atlanta airport
during a stopover stay.

These solicitous gifts
stirred deeply felt memories
of my South Carolina childhood
when I was cared for
by Florrie, Rosa, and Verda
and of sweet Jessie
who cooked next door
and sent me home
at end of long play-days
with three, still-warm-from-the-oven biscuits
small, buttered, perfectly flaked
wrapped carefully in a paper napkin
that I greedily devoured
before arriving at my back door
fifty feet away.

I am divorced
in various ways
from my native south
and when I visit now
mostly for funerals
I cherish conversations
joyous and accepting
with random, black strangers
refreshing my heart's connections
to long-ago, soul-forming comfort.

Max's Tomorrowland

Ten days of grandmother heaven
as newborn Max's late-night date

cocooned together on cozy sofas
conjuring up tall-tale adventures

jumping off MacDonald rocks
skiing Tahoe's powdery slopes

hiking Hadrian's serpentine wall
meditating at the Taj Mahal

ballooning over the Serengeti
paragliding among Alpine peaks

exploring Antarctica's icy pole

climbing the highest Himalayas

watching sunrise at Macchu Picchu
and sunset from Haleakala's crest

soon Max must begin his heroic quest
backpack stuffed with kin's affection.


 

Occasional Fantasy

I want to smash
all smart phones
whatever their brand

I want to stop
the beeping, playing
of Pachelbel's Canon

I want to snatch back
possessed attentions
from Digital's siren songs

I want to see
human eyes again
unglued from machines.

Afternoon Concert at Symphony Hall

Attendees in waiting
capture my watchful gaze

carefully turned-out ladies
coiffed with silver-haired curls

elegant ones sit mixed
among animated others

I survey the usual crowd
certain that I will glimpse

one of my mother's friends
surely Claudia or Dootsie

none return my searching smile
instead regard me not at all

daunted in spirit, I realize
I'm just another of their number

pretty nearly three score and ten
I do not yet accept my aging

quickly I depart this lounge
with springier step in my gait.