Chirp

evening cricket songs

  woven in to golden light

-small letters of love

Flamingos

Flamingos lounging in tropical waters along side exotic flowers

You stand so still and I have not seen you duck your head for the longest. 

Perhaps your are full from an unseen early morning breakfast?

So poised, tall and pink, nothing is of concern to you

standing on your wire legs.

The entirety of their silly flamboyance seems oblivious

to store, with all our eyes and shuffling sounds, 

even the  children are no cause for alarm.

They must be proud birds, perhaps they are all ashamed to be on clearance

here at Walmart

2 for $20.

Packing List

For me it is a cry, a wail, of pure unsatiated yearning.

So many years of moves 

and changes 

and towns.
Ever more moving boxes and new class rooms and faces.

All so wonderfully new at first, 

to learn and meet and explore. 

Only to leave behind again and mostly forget 

as a small bit of past.  

somewhere else, now no longer new.

No one stayed in my pocket or my conversations. 

They faded away. Just gone 

and papered over with aa new address.

So many years of places and small stories have flipped by 

and are now too deep in the deck. 

Too far gone. 

Just gone and replaced

when no one was packed up 

and labeled on my box

and sent along with me

to help me remember 

who they ever were.

Dog Tired

 The Dogwood leaves are tired and drawn by the 31 

 hot and dry August days.

They dangle, painted bruise-brown, with the pallor 

of old raisin-tasting wine. Far past its prime.

Their green is long gone.

Their work is done,

They wait to fall 

away.

Losses

last years Robin hen

returns to prepare her nest

-culls the cold blue shell

Home on the Rain

most Portland days

this mossy yard stays sodden

feeding cold rivers

Between Two Mirrors

 

Time. Its name is whispered, scrawled, and mumbled in so many ways. Its face reflected in countless mirrors and dissolved into the many waters of the world.

Seasons of growth and learning, dead leaves and then new. Wrinkles, stooped height, growth rings, wisdom, minutes then inches, infirmity, rotting wood and patinas of every hue.

The flow from tide to yet another tide, months, calendars, addresses and anniversaries, cakes and cards, greying hair, the muting of senses, the cutting of young curls, births and mistakes, victories, and death.

We measure people with small pencil marks on door frames or by clothes that no longer fit. From seed to stem then leaf, to cone and broken limb. Then a harvested trunk with some of it as sawdust scattered on the floor. Hair changes color and fades in color and vitality.

Christmas, survival, recovery, mountains fading slowly to hills, the dimming of stars, first impressions and then urns and good byes, the resolutions, the dreams and trophies and the long kept dresses and jackets and the glory of what was then.

Time brings it all to bear with only the quiet whisper from the sands that continue their steady fall

 

from the top,

 

down to the bottom

 

of the glass.