The withering leaves
Holding on to the green
As they struggle
Laden with
Snow to control
The last moments
Of their living existence
Short the distance
To the ground
Where they will soon
Be piled up
Into fond
Childhood Memories
An orderly disarray —
Recorder singing
Up and down the scale
While the flowers
Of Autumn dance
In the light breeze.
Forget-me-nots
And daisies
Orange marigolds
Red dew cups
Full of bees knees
Tomato, basil
Garlic Please!
Small leaves
Of chard to
Be tossed with
The lard of
A beautiful bacon butt.
Don’t be late for breakfast!
A fresh start
Like cold autumn air
Pulling back the heat curtain
To reveal brisk brightness
That bites at the lungs
And steams out your mouth.
A cup of hot coffee
Vapor currents dancing
From its circular rim…
So it begins
And we scan the horizon
For Hot Air Balloons
That aren’t rising this year.
No mass ascension
To draw your attention
Away from the boring end
of summer.
In this Covid time
No gathering sublime
to race off into
the sunrise.
Here we sit
and take a sip
of our cooling coffee
at the breakfast table
unable to escape another day.
O, happy kill
And with pure will
The tiny Widow
Hauls whole snails
Down below
To feed her sacks
Of tiny brats
By the hundreds
They will flow
Into my dreams
Reminding me though
There are things
I do not like!
Like counting spiders
Through the night
Who creep and sneak
And crawl to fright me
Out of my slumber cold.
Though I’m not their prey
A snack they may
Make from me
In the morning light.
(But, truly they were never there…
Just in my dreams and
Awakened stares
Taking from me my
Restful delights.)
*Alacrity – Not a common word for most. I stole it from William Carlos Williams. “Brisk and cheerful readiness.”
Her curves cut through him
She is the center of his life
All roads in his city
End upon her shores; Her Mountains
–Earthquakes, Time and her origins–
Embrace him Day and Night
Wind and heat; parch and monsoon
She drinks from the sky
to bring his thirst to an end
He lights Her nights and
bridges her spans
They form this imperfect circle
One man, called by many names
Beeʼeldííl Dahsinil; Arawageeki; Vakêêke;
Alo:ke:k’ya; Gołgéeki’yé — now AL-bə-kur-kee
One woman, loved by the people
mets’ichi chena, posoge, paslápaane
hañapakwa, Tó Baʼáadi, Female River, Great Waters, Rio Grande
Mr. Robins
Takes a bath
He’s not concerned with math
Except perhaps
To count their eggs
Or later how many mouths they’ve fed
But today he’s just getting clean
A deep splash
And shake
Sending water splattering
He takes this
“Bird bath”
Seriously
He pays no mind to you and me.
…
Not until the dog comes out
Does Mr. Robins
Give a shout
No, now that he
Is clean all through
Fly to the nest’s
Alls left to do.
The geraniums
I brought in to
Stave off frosted night
Red and white
Fireworks
Bursting in the morning light
Can the moon see my fire
As it passes over head
Both alight my night
And stave off the dread
Of all those things out
In the the darkness of all
Those things we cannot see
But if the moon can see my fire
I’ll spend the night outwardly
Turning the dirt
With Great-Grand-Daddy’s plow
Sharecropper’s till
Real familiar somehow
Making quick work
Of my little garden plot
He’d make an acre
Into food they never bought
Traded with the Osage
When he had a good crop
But it never really seems
Like my efforts pay out full
Maybe this year’s different
Using my ancestral tool
Yearning
Clamshells
Open slow
With a
Lazy
Yawning
Frond
Unwound
Reaching
Tendrils
Unfurled
Revealing
Future
Colors
Of long
Summer’s Day.