After the Snowstorm

Second snowfall
louder than first
in clumps, not flakes

mini-blizzards
crystalline screens
with pelting plops

white-coated limbs
wind-shivered
evergreen again.

Unending Civil War

Still in sharp divide
war among citizens
in battle of ideas

pigheaded stubbornness
without civility
stuck in past prejudice

cultural advances
ridiculed, demeaned
by red-led charlatans

two hundred plus fifty years
of combative, fraught union
agreement still elusive.

Tipping Point

Outrage galore
incendiaries
of speech and action

over the top
beyond the pale
always bizarre

when's sufficient
to tip over
mounting menace?

Beach Rocks

Far-flung messengers
from parent sources
metamorphic, granite
sedimentary types
unlikely oceanic.

origin stories
from coastal bedrock
relentlessly sculpted
with timeless patience
into handheld beauties.