Category: Riverwoods Poems

THOUGHTS ON A HORESHOE CRAB SHELL

Its carapace lies on the shore

More ancient than the dinosaur.

It spawned a hundred thousand roe

A tasty treat, as Thai folk know,

And food for heron, gull or tern

Or any shallow water bird,

A good arrangement all around

To hold an overpopulation down.

Phragmites, called the common reed,

Can generate a million seeds

Or send its runners all about

To crowd its native neighbors out,

Though grazing cattle can contain

Its spread and keep the landscape sane.

The pink wild rose stays in its place

And does not seek to dominate

While multiflora roses shoulder

Their way around, forever bolder.

What lessons can we humans take

From other species’ use of space?

TODAY’S KAYAK

As we put in our three boats

We feel the first few drops.

It is too warm for raincoats

So we push brashly off.

Across the lily-padded cove

A hectored heron flies

Harassed by a persistent crow

With persecution on his mind.

The large dark cloud above us

Then looses its watery freight

And soon has sprinkled upon us,

Refreshing on this hot day.

Undaunted, we paddle onward

Along the reedy marsh

Hearing children’s voices behind us

From the camp whose beach we passed.

At the island we turn back landward.

Damp but happy we’ll head homeward.

YOUNG MUSICIANS

Their slender fingers ripple over the keys.

Their bows stroke the strings with graceful ease.

Over complex scores their ungrayed heads are bent.

Their unlined brows furrow with grave intent.

Mini-skirted or tie-shirted, they create

Music we oldsters gratefully appreciate.

This tender talent so pleasing to our ears

We know will ripen richly in coming years.

IN ABSENTIA

The first Monday in May

Slid off the calendar.

It mingled into Tuesday,

Dissolved in thin air.

The dentist could not reach me.

He wondered where I was.

It was an anniversary,

A day of grief and loss.

I could not bear to re-live

The day my sweetheart died.

There’s nothing that I would not give

To have him by my side.

ON THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL

As they circle and soar

In wide leisurely glides

The western sun silvers

Their wings’ undersides:

Four ebony vultures

On a springtime patrol

Back from the southlands

To clean up our roads

While a pale full moon

On the eastern horizon

Rises to bestow

A benevolent benison

And at the small pond

Two redwings chatter

To welcome the emergence

Of ice-free water.

ON THE LAST DAY OF MARCH

The wind has wielded a brush and comb

To tease the clouds in all directions

Extracting fragile transparent film,

Wafting it over an azure canvas.

Stubborn diminishing drifts of snow

Persist in sullen sordid ranks

Along the gravel encrusted roads,

Reluctant to cede their prominent place

However much we wish them gone.

Meanwhile the red capped finches have come

To check out the top of my tall blue spruce

The site of their last year’s nest and brood,

And the first two turkey vultures arrive

To circle above the neighborhood:

I will lift up mine eyes for signs of spring.

TRANSITION

Here on the cusp of spring

The foxy Prince of Darkness

Will retreat to his lonesome lair

Leaving the fair Persephone

To soften the icy winds

And water the snowbanks down.

March has come in like a lion

And is leaving like T Rex.

Polar glaciers dissolve:

The cold descends to us.

We cheer to see the grass

Emerge from rotting snow.

The jay and the chickadee lisp

Their piece to potential mates.

But Persephone will do well

To free us from winter’s clutch.

The light at the end of the tunnel

MAY be the summer’s sun

And Persephone MAY return

To her darksome winter home.

REJUVENATION

Whenever you are near

Laughter rises up in me

Like sap in a maple tree.

Whenever you are here

Words tumble out of me

Like coins in a slot machine

When somebody hits the jackpot.

And though I know I ought

To avoid this beckoning eddy

And steer into calmer waters,

Bubbles rise in my champagne

And age no longer trammels me.

Old birds have leave to sing

However short their spring.

OUR DAN

I imagine him out in the pasture blowing snow

To make a space for four shelter goats

And one wool coated sheep to move and browse

Outside their shed and for impatient hens,

Too long cooped in, to strut and hunt and peck.

His Kathy may be knitting that sheep’s wool

Or weaving a shawl on one of her many looms.

And when the spring produces  brightly green

Asparagus shoots on all  his roadside banks

Dan will be canning them for winter soups.

He must have inherited Grandma Lillie’s genes.

They have no use for lawns.  Flowering shrubs,

Rock gardens, raised beds and berry bushes

Fill up their yard.  They gather eggs.  Sometimes

An aging rooster transforms into a stew.

This distinguished Cisco software engineer

Has retired early to learn to play guitar

And sing his songs at friendly open mics.

When he was young Dan had an attic room

In our three-story,  part-Victorian home,

And in the space next to his bedroom he hosted

Cages and cages of guinea pigs, gerbils and hamsters.

He is true to his Tappan family Yorkshire heritage

As shepherds and farmers, good stewards of the planet.

KISMET

As the cribbage game comes to an end

She wonders about Bev’s maiden name.

“What?” she exclaims.  “Is that who you are?

I knew you in high school.  Your friends were mine.

We often sailed on your husband’s boat.

How did I come to find you here?”

Ah, that is the mystery Kurt Vonnegut

Called “Karma”.  Who does Fate arrange

To saunter in and out of our affairs?

As once we ferried down Lake Ullswater

Where Wordsworth saw his daffodils,

We saw, on landing at the ferry dock

A friendly and familiar figure calling out,

A welcome face so far from kith and kin

That last we’d seen afloat on Big Moose Lake,

A fellow paddler in the Adirondacks.

And once on a remote Montana trail

To Cracker Lake in Glacier National Park,

We recognized a couple by a rock

Who greeted us with an astonished hail:

Friends we had made on Elderhostel treks.

And how did you and I manage to meet?

On such encounters do our fortunes rest.