Critters and Colors of Spring

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90331

MYRMECOLOGY

How do you sex
an ant?

The usual way.
(Hee-hee!)

If it’s a worker,
it’s a she.


090330

THERE IS A SEASON

Outdoors, winter ice has melted.
Ants are coming in.
Most are in the kitchen, of course.
A few have found the bed.
One, suffocating in the crook
of my arm, bit.
I brushed her off, none too gently.

In childhood,
on more than one summer night,
I pasted my ring-finger
with a firefly’s glowing belly
pinched off.

When was I innocent?
Was I innocent then?


090329

SPRING SNOW

In the Charolais pasture,
white cow-paddies disappear,
along with their mamas.


090328

I THINK I CAN’T

I lie in bed,
tired and mired.
I can’t get up.

What does this
impasse mean?

How can I get
inspired, re-fired—
get up
a head of steam?


090327

WORK-OUT

Oooh, Sweetie,
how comfy you look
on that cushion,
all primed for a belly-rub.

There you go, Kitty.
And how about a scrootch
behind the ears. Yes.

Oooh, stretch, stre-e-e-e-tch,
stretch-em-out.
Mm-humm. Very good!

Don’t you feel all better now;
now that you’ve done
your work for the day?


090326

COLOR CONSTRAST
(for Pam)

Ahead, in two green pastures,
cows are growing fat;
black and white on this side,
black-and-white on that.


090325

CHEERS!

Scouter still, at middle age,
chases tail, pounces on bedclothes,
and riles the other cats.
He’s our stir-leader.

Okie, younger, will engage
but usually prefers to make
a running commentary
about these spats
He’s our chirr-leader.


090324

ORAYSHUN

Potes an’ Asp’rants,
land me on ears!
Heed on this a’vice:

Ya gotta git yore
“i-dee-as” rit out;
an’ do that more’n twice—
them flings an’ flangs
an sturms an’ drangs;
them thangs ‘at crowd yore mind.

An’ when that’s done,
go have some fun
ritin’ ‘bout cats an’ mice,
an’ lazy dogs, an’ sloppin’ hogs:
real thangs ‘at make life nice.


090323

RUNNING ‘ROUND

Habit-bound,
one foot in a fast track,
one foot in a slow—
until I make
a straight attack,
round and round I’ll go.


090322

SPRING ARRIVAL

A neighbor, in kindness,
brought a bouquet;
a cluster of jonquils
with one curved spray
of forsythia; then,
there, at the heart—
for contrast of color
and sweetness of scent—
one lone and glorious
pink hyacinth.


090321

WAY OKAY!

When the neighborhood
orange kitty
became our orange kitty,
we dubbed him “O.K.”

“Okie” seemed appropriate, too,
since one of us hails from Oklahoma.

Lately, as pet names tend to do,
this one got shortened; to “Oak.”

In a world full of red oaks,
black oaks, and white oaks—
what do you suppose
an orange oak is worth?

Some might speculate,
but we already know.


090320

AGE-OLD BATTLES

It is so,
and so is right,
that youth grows old
as day grows night.

Right;
that youth ignores
the plights of age,
which it abhors.

It is so,
and so is right,
that youth may flee
what age must fight.


MARCH TWENTY

Spring came tomorrow
when I was a child—
on the twenty-first.

When and why this changed,
who knows?

Pluto was a planet then,
or not discovered.

In each season,
In escalating cycles,
one discovery
springs from another.


090319

FUN-DAMENT

To do a thing
day after day,
there has to be
some love at play.


090318

SURVEY

Of other people’s poems,
I attune
to one in ninety-nine.

What reader-writer ratio
would apply,
do you suppose, to mine?


090317

ASPIRATIONS

inhalations
exhalations
observed,
reveal expectations
repeal irritations


090316

ALL RESCUES ARE MUTUAL

I held my life pristine,
not wanting to be seen
or heard
or felt;
not wanting to be known.

I might have vanished, too,
had it not been for you
who found
me out
and claimed me for my own.


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