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.