Winter Drafts

***

090117

woodpeckers
swooshing tree to tree
in scallop-dip flight


ACT ONE, SEEN TWICE

Walking toward a creek,
I notice a mallard downstream;
a bright-headed male.
His mate announces herself
by flying away.
Seconds later, he follows.

“Hey!” that male probably thought
when I first arrived,
“What is this disturbance?
Oh, a two-legged.”

“Danger?” queried the female.
“Let’s just see,” he responded,
but she'd already departed.

“Of course I’m not afraid,”
he assured himself, lifting off.
“But I must stay with my mate
and protect her.”

Walking away from the creek,
I wonder, “Who supplied this dialogue?
And should I demand a rewrite?”


CALLED HOME

Ribs prominent,
the skeleton lay whitened on the ground
exactly where the body fell and died,
or where it died and fell.

There would be no removal,
no fuss of any kind;
just a sinking into and becoming earth,
a melding into the only place
the tree had ever known.


ON THE LOOKOUT

What did you see rare today?
What did you see new?

I saw a bird’s quick change-of-mind
expressed in how it flew.
And, in a sky of straight con-trails,
one that curved askew.


VIVIFICATION

Should you ever find yourself
lakeside at dusk
when a large stone nearby
suddenly takes flight,
the appellation “great blue”
will take on uncommon significance.

Even more uncommon
is to encounter a heron anywhere
that has not already alerted to you.


090116

ADDICTS

All of us are weak,
it’s said.

Some may drink,
or bet, or bed,
do drugs, or over-feed.

As for me; I read.


090115

SPECIOUS

There are too many poems
in the world;
not to mention, poets.

There are too many flowers,
species of flowers,
and species of every kind of genus.

The world is too abundant, too profuse:
too much goes unappreciated,
unacknowledged, or unnoticed.

It’s such a waste! Or else—
some Genius’s specie of a poem.


090114

CURRENT EVENTS

Planes crash.
Economies tank.
Superpowers bomb.

I write a pome,
pet a cat,
call my mom.


090113

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

An hour of poems
lovingly read
to a captive audience
on my bed.

Shall I cry
or groan or weep?
Each ear and eye
was put to sleep.


090112

BOOK MARK

I quit reading the library’s
holistic healing book
and went outdoors
to catch a breath of fresh air
when I came to the page
that had been mangled.


090111

APPLES

Everything is connected
to everything else—
apples to oranges,
Valencia to Rome.

That’s why it’s so easy
to start with a word
(“apples” or “oranges”)
and end up with a pome.


090110

PAYING MY WAY

At end of day,
I pay a toll—
a poem as a token;
words of tribute
to the day,
spoken or unspoken.


090109

PURPOSE-DRIVEN

What is life;
what’s the attraction?

- Mere expansion and contraction?
- To observe, or to create?
- Something else, if not too late?

What is life;
what’s the attraction?

All I want is—satisfaction!


090108

NOTICE

Look around.
It’s all profound.


090107

CRUISE SOCKS

My favorite pair of socks
(which I'm wearing now)
isn’t—
strictly speaking.

My right foot sports a green sock,
my left a red. This is slightly ironic,
since they aren't sports socks.

As I navigate my day,
I so much relish their red-and-green,
port-and-starboard motif
that I rationalize how pale
the red one's color is.
(Truth be told, it is a dusty pink.)
In fact, I confess,
the sock is dusty as well as its hue.
This comes of my cruising
our hardwood floors
in stocking feet (and, yes, of not
swabbing the decks daily).

The mates to these socks
have gone AWOL.
Someday, I expect they will wash up
on the shore of our laundry pile.

Unless (why not?),
as oppositely-attracted lovers,
they have eloped to some
south-seas island and now are
living, blissfully entwined,
in a private paradise.

For them, and for the record,
I harbor just such a fantasy.


090105

PARTNERS IN CRIME

Today, in broad daylight
on my neighbor’s lawn,
I witnessed a mass murder.

Black-clad mauraders
gathered under a large oak tree
to brazenly conduct their riot.
Afterwards, they disappeared,
looting eastward.

Still later, but not still,
they congregated in the street
before my house, issuing taunts
with mocking cries.

I appeased them
with stale bread and other extortions.
As they cawed their victory,
their exultation was echoed by my own;
I had become a willing accomplice.


090104

DAY BREAK

Recent dawns—
rousing glows
of peach and yellow
tinged with rose.

Yesterday’s—
a reveille;
a golden blaze.

Today’s—
a call to doze;
some languid phase
of silver haze.


090103

DREAMY

Nestled in love
under blanket and sheet,
rapt in your arms
I wrapped up in sleep.


090102

REFINING AIM

I’m bored.

No. I’m restless.
Cabin fever, maybe.

No. Not that exactly.
I’m searching for something.

I’m searching for something
to substitute for shopping.

No.
I’m searching for whatever
shopping was a substitute for.


090101

BROKEN DREAMS

Why did I wake?
What time is it?
Oh, gee, it's only four.

I want to sleep.
I need to sleep.
Oh, let me sleep some more!


081228

HOW CRAFT FARES

It wasn’t Prairie Grove,
where squirrels pelted my booth
with acorns; not there.

It wasn’t War Eagle,
where road-dust sifted onto
satin-doll mohair hair.

Or Siloam Springs,
where I lost a contact lens
overnight in the grass.

It was Joplin,
where I traded for a plant stand
wrought of iron and glass—

Someone there
sold out for pennies,
for yarn, to keep on knitting.

How many "pomes"
must I sell, by now,
to make an equal living?


081226

GROUP HUB

You who are uncertain,
like me;
You who know sorrow,
like me;

Who seek the core lesson,
root cause, and root change;
Who search, centered on love,
not on grammar or roles;
Who desire, above all,
joy of awareness
and awareness of joy—

Let us meet at the hub
of our mutual quest
and there embrace;
become each other’s joy.


081223

GREETING THE DAWN

Good morning, Morning.
My, but you are
looking grand!

Good day, Day.
What, for me,
do you have planned?

Come in, visit,
have some tea.

Stay awhile.
Just be with me.


081222

JUGGERNAUT

Unless I plan to die this year,
I’d better get my act in gear.


081221

LAST LESSON

It’s hard to die
when people won’t let you.
But that is the way of people,
once attachments are made.
And so,
expect that your transition
will be lengthened,
as well as eased.

Let yourself be held and caressed,
for this is a shared learning and
you are an advanced teacher.

Welcome home, Pilgrim.


081220

HOME WORK

Saturday’s for shopping.
Saturday’s for chores:
dusting, waxing, scrubbing,
laundry, mopping floors.


081219

A RENDEVOUS

Buzzard,
when you came to die—
somehow summoned,
there came I.

On the road as cars drove by,
you made no attempt to fly
till I slowed—
then you showed
your battered body, broken wing.

Without protest, you acquiesced
to all my role would bring:
the vet exam,
the verdict,
the needle in the vein.

Buzzard,
when you came to die—
you and I looked eye to eye.
Somehow, I don’t wonder why.


081218

PLAYED OUT

My pencil will not write tonight
(my pencil or my mind).

I search for inspiration
but all that I can find
is an empty-headedness;
something of that kind.

Instead of poet, I must be
becoming deaf, dumb, blind—
or truly empty-headed;
my mind’s been overmined.

***