Category: Poems

SPRING BEAUTIES

How flagrantly the tulips flaunt their flavors

(Vanilla, cherry, orange and lemon savours)

While overhead the apple blossoms swath

Their hosts in clouds of billowing cheesecloth.

On woodland verges daffodils brightly beam

And luminous lilacs over us sometimes lean.

Modest blue grape hyacinths peep out.

Scarlet quinces give a lusty shout.

Cherry trees dropped their petals some weeks past.

Violets modestly blush amidst the grass.

Korean dogwoods are the first to blossom

Before our native rose and ivory cousins.

Lilies of the Valley perfume the air.

My eyes delight in flowers everywhere.

V

HERITAGE

What we leave behind

Is not a rich estate:

A bent for garden plots,

A gift for making rhymes,

A music-making taste.

Or perhaps you’ll find

Some pre-Columbian pots,

A few hooked rugs in place,

A great-grandmother’s table,

A World War silver star,

Some letters from Peru

With sterling silver flatware.

And hopefully we’re able

To leave behind for you

A wrap-around of love

To warm you when we’re gone.

NEIGHBORS

The cardinal in my Katsura tree

Stares at my blue spruce

From which a house finch emerges

To chase him up to the roof.

As I walk to the workout gym

A squirrel crosses my path.

I’m of no concern to him,

An acorn within his grasp.

The robin gives me a look

And continues with his quest

Hoping to trace the route

Of earthworms under the grass

As on a nearby birch

A woodpecker hammers his search.

HEADS UP

The snow arrived in April

But it did not kill

The crocuses and snowdrops or

The long-stemmed daffodils.

The daffodils bent over

Compliantly lay down

Accepted their cold cover

Prostrated on the ground.

But in the week that followed

Yellow heads began to rise and

Stems began to straighten.

We rejoiced to realize

That spring was not defeated.

Winter really had retreated.

PLACEMENTS

I’ve grown accustomed to this space

These two big rooms I shared with you

Where in the parking lot they face

I see compadres come and go.

We shared small places, you and I

Two-person tents on river banks

The back porch of a double-wide

Youth hostels where we flung our packs.

But we shared larger spaces too

The canyon’s depths, the river’s run

The prairie’s breadth, the ocean’s blue

The broad earth was our living room.

Now you have sought a distant star

While I am lightly tethered here.

THE COMING OF SPRING

It begins with the house finches

Reclaiming the blue spruce

In early February

Unfazed by lingering inches

Of snow or cold,  using

Their last year’s sanctuary.

And then the cardinal calls

From behind the garages.

A crowd of robins assembles

To sample a pear tree’s largesse.

By now it is March.  Snowdrops

And purple crocus are showing.

Maples turn red.  Willows

Turn yellow.  A circle

Of lady bluebirds flies close

To my daughter’s Dunstable windows.

Today is the first of April.

Forsythia blooms beside daffodils.

THE SNOWS OF SPRINGTIME

Old Man Winter has lost his grip.

This March storm he has thrown at us

Is not an overpowering blizzard.

We watch the white blobs plopping off

The spruce arms.  Where the plow has passed

Pavements are black and bare and glistening.

We are not housebound.  We can dare

To venture out and do our errands.

The kids will build their snowmen, make

Snow angels, hurl snow missiles.

Sun will turn snowflakes into wine

For crocuses and daffodils to drink.

There goes a crow, casually high-stepping

Pausing to dip his beak into the ice cream.

AT THE GOAT FARM

It’s mud time in March and I am on my way

To pick up milk at the Jesta Farm

Where mother goats are kidding every day.

There’s mud on the farmyard driveway

Covered with hay.  The chickens prance

To meet me, clucking their querulous queries.

I warn them not to take a chance

On foraging under my car wheels.

Pungent odors assail my nose

As I slide open the door to the warm barn

And hear the bleats of nanny goats

Who fear their kids have come to harm.

I take my milk and head for home

Where ice no longer coats our pond.

NEIGHBORS

The house finches are back!  They

Did not wait for spring.

On February’s bitter days

They flitted insouciantly

In and out and about the

Prickly arms of my spruce tree,

Several of them for a while,

Last year’s nestlings perhaps,

Until an agreement was reached:

This year’s duo domiciled.

Meanwhile March has bustled in

With transient snow and wind.

Now that spring is in the air

They’re a happily settled pair.

DANCE TIME

There’s a time for Ring Around the Rosy,

Musical chairs and Farmer in the Dell,

And a time for jitterbug, electro-pop,

Disco, Eurobeat, New Wave as well.

And then we do the wedding march and waltz,

Virginia Reel and polka and all that

Or mambo, samba, tango, lindy et al.

Before the final shuffle with the walker.

So when the caller hails you to the dance floor

Kick up your heels and swing your partner round.

Promenade and bow and dos si dos.

Make the most of your time on the ground

Before the lights begin to turn down low,

The Exit sign above the door to glow.

:

WISHFUL THINKING

Carbon is not our only bane.

More dangerous is potent methane

Rising from every cattle herd,

From every landfill undeterred

And melting permafrost up north:

In cumulus clouds it billows forth.

Four hundred thousand Hiroshimas

Equal one day of noxious gases.

Oh for a breath of Eden’s clear

Unpolluted ambient air,

Oceans of fat unfettered fish,

Springs of water pure and fresh,

Verdant fields immune to drought

And temperate zephyrs from the south.

ON A FRIGID MORNING

They hang from the eaves like spikes

The fingernails of old man winter,

Translucent tapered icicles,

A warning to stay inside.

A blast of Arctic air

Has caged us in our rooms

Hoping the grid won’t fail,

Fearful of roadside breakdowns.

Some say our end is fire

But we fear more the ice.

We know how to deal with desire:

Hypothermia’s not so nice

Though if one must really go

There are worse conveyors than snow.