Across the saffron sky

Maybe a peacock exploded in the sky tonight, scattering his jewel-tipped feathers
Across the saffron horizon, where the sun bounced slowly into night

Throughout the new-night sky

Perhaps I saw Monet fly high across the summerland tonight
Smudging the sliver moon with purple
Leaving a dim smear of light behind. 
He blurred the clouds to a mosaic of sunset colors
And threw the stars, carelessly
Throughout the new-night sky.

'Round Salomon Farm

Walking the trail 'round Salomon Farm / The low-slung sun still heavy with day's heat / Down a shallow swale, the curve leads me past a windrow / And evening surprises me from the shadows.

July's Revenge

Only air conditioners roar this hot evening / Grass too stressed to grow / Surely a night to curl up with a good book / And a cold margarita / A in January in July.

The Whole Horizon

Tonight, I watched the pink ring, all around
The way the ring deepened to navy below
Night sneaking up on us
The way the pink faded to turquoise above
Daytime slow to give up
The scant clouds relent, darkening 
The tired sun flares and sinks, stealing the color
The ring rolls away.

Nashville -- no stranger to the rain

After all the songs about rain,

The rainy night, the rain on the roof,

The rain in your blue eyes--

Hey Nashville, remember

What Waylon said -- Storms never last;

Yet from Ft. Wayne experience,

The mud lingers for weeks.

Note to BP: Your oily avoidance roils my sense of responsibility

If, by chance, oil should spew from Earth's dark mantle

Without the intervention of God, or Jed Clampett--

Then, indeed, British Petroleum, sans Transocean, or not;

With your oily avoidance, or not;

This ecologic nightmare IS "your accident."


Yours in responsible drilling, C.

Just a short thing I wrote in my head

On the way to work the other day:

These frigid days / strung like icicles / across the calendar / perhaps the reluctant sun / will drip them away.

With lines in my head

Mornings

Surely I'm awake

Monday's just a state of mind

--A slap in the face.

Morning moon, don't blink--

That bloody, bruised sunrise brings

Dark violence from the west.

Last night's bright stars

Fell to my yard

First frost.

On Fall

That field of winter wheat

Newly green in January

Fall finds fallow.

Trees drop leaves like tears

A quiet sob of regret

First day of fall .

Drove to work this morning

In a seashell turned upside-down

A sky turned blue and opal pink

Yet not a sea in sight.

Windy this morning

And the moon clung to Venus

As if she could be blown away.

Just a Walk

Voices from a dark deck

Fountains splash in stormwater ponds

The heron doesn't care.

Halogen streetlight outlasts the orange sunset

Someone's dryer freshens the air

Evening in the suburbs.

O September

O go away, September.
I'm tired of you already;
Tired of your last-holiday-of-summer,
The finality of Labor Day;
Tired of your first-day-of-Autumn
September Twenty-second-ness;
Tired of the back-to-school sales flyers
And the ads for sweaters and backpacks.
I'm tired of the cool fall nights
And the "good sleeping weather" rejoinders.
Tired of football, even, bright lights
And jarring tackles and rah-rah Friday nights.
I'm tired of "The leaves are starting to change!"
Observations, and any references to woolly bears
And their predictions.
Tired, too, of all the "last-of" things,
Last Trip to the Lake,
Last picnic, last swim, last boat ride.
Already I'm tired of thinking about
And all the winteriness ahead,
All the dead leaves and brown grass
And ice.
I'm tired of missing sunny days and warm nights
And fresh tomatos on the vine.
Most of all of I'm tired of dreading
The Official Last Day of Summer,
Even as the mornings shine in my window later
And the evening enroaches earlier.
O come back, Summer!
Don't let September chase you away,
Don't leave me, don't go, please please please
Come back, O Summer! Don't -- go -- just -- yet --
Gone.

About the wind

Our bedroom window was cracked open last night, and it wasn't the birds or even daylight that woke me this morning--it was the wind. We'll be going to two baseball games today, and the wind is never good for baseball. But there are a few things wind is good for (where's that wind farm when we need it?).

I had another wind experience last Thursday. I wore a skirt, rather full, to work, and on returning to the office after lunch, a gust caught it and gave me a Marilyn Monroe moment, only without the nice legs or sexiness.

From one of my favorite poets:

The Wind
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies' skirts across the grass

Oh wind, a blowing all day long,
Oh wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all

Oh wind, a blowing all day long!
Oh wind, that sings so loud a song!

O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?

O wind, a blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song!

About short takes

Insomnia

Let me watch you sleep,

Sweet surcease comes not to me;

I will rest in you.

Bad day

Last night.

Good plan.

Distracted.

Frustrated.

Ennui.

Capitulation.

Regret.

Retribution.

Damn.

Gggggrrrrrr

Not expecting.

Sudden rudeness.

Flashpoint!

Blow up!

Spout off!

Over-reaction?

Rationalization?

Sympathy.

Calm down.

Oh well.

About spring

I don't believe in spring

 

Not yet, not when there's frost

On the car I forgot to bring in last night.

 

I don't believe in spring

When the weekend's forecast shows snow,

And the furnace will again kick on, endlessly.

 

No, it's hard to believe in spring

When I'm grabbing a winter coat from the closet

And regretting I took my gloves from the pocket.

 

And where was spring  this morning,

When I woke in the dark, shivering,

Thinking of warm coffee and abandoned blankets?

 

O spring, cruel phantom,

Meteorological tease,

Vernal equinox who?

 

You've fooled those birds I heard singing

When I opened the front door this morning,

Before even the sun got up.

Although the sun seems confused --

So warm on my back, and

Forgetting t to set until long into evening.

 

I've warned the trees in my yard--

Budding rapidly - -that this

Is something they'll regret. To no avail.

 

You go ahead. Get all excited and open your windows.

Not me. I won't be falling for that errant warm day

 

Because I don't believe in spring.

About January 20, 2009

Shield your eyes,

For the view from the mountaintop

Is both blinding and terrifying.

We're too close to the sun,

And too far from familiar earth.

Up here it seems we could fly,

Just lean forward and and let the

Rare air hold us aloft,

Straining our eyes to look

Over the far, hazy, hopeful horizon.

Storm warning

It's not frigid yet. That air is to come,
Packed isobars piling down upon us.
Right now it's tolerable, and I can tell
By the way the snow crunches underfoot.
When the arctic air comes, the snow will moan, 
Although my boots will leave the same footprints
As I cross the street.
It's quiet on Hearthstone Drive this late afternoon.
Above me the sky is a placid, even grey
As if reflecting the snow beneath.
The air's dead. Calm. 
Almost like there's no air.
It's so still that my short walk seems an affront
To a midwinter still life.
Like when you take a deep, deep breath
And hold it a moment.
You know your heart is still beating,
Yet there's a pause. And then exhale.

About the cleanliness of snow

The cleanliness of snow

If defoliating, destructive winter
Tends to expose and exaggerate
The flaws of the flattened, bleak landscape
Perhaps we should all be more tolerate of
The clean, artful spareness
Of new snow.

Lavender in winter

If in summer
As I walk by
I can run my hand lightly
Along the tall spike
Covered with small flowers,
Releasing the sunny scent
Into soft air; it
Clings and lingers on my fingers.

Today I shuffled by
On ice-crusted sidewalk,
To find pale leaves buried
In last night's snow,
Bracts stiffened, color gone;
My gloved hand reached out--
To grasp only the faint memory
Of fallen flowers.

About Winter

Oh anybody could write a bad poem, but some days you just need to read a good one. It's about hope:

The Darkling Thrush

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

LEANT upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-gray,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.




The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires.




The land's sharp features seem'd to be

The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seem'd fervourless as I.




At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.




So little cause for carollings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.

You've got to love a poet who can combine both "The Century's corpse outleant" AND "Some blessèd Hope" in the same poem.

Seemingly, so little reason to sing--yet still he does. Still he does.

About stringing words together

Night flurries

White out of blackness;
Driving through the snowy night;
Stars fall at warp speed.

School play

Rows of fresh faces;
Today they are eleven,
And sing without guile.

The tree

Pick out a good one;
Next place the lights, carefully;
Top with a bright star.

Friday morning

Sound of the alarm;
Another dark morning comes--
Motivation lags.

Presents

If I say I want
This, but you decide to buy
That--I won't be mad.

Full moon

Sharp through the skylight,
Moonlight falls on your face;
Ghost on the pillow.

About how Christmas comes

Christmas come quietly
Turn the calendar page.
Christmas come slowly
For children and their wishes.
Christmas come busy
Too much to be done.
Christmas come quickly
Full weeks fly by.
Christmas come softly
Carols on the stereo.
Christmas come tasty
Cookies in the oven.
Christmas come sadly
Missing you.
Christmas come anxious
Family dysfunction.
Christmas come tiny
Little kids' eyes.
Christmas come green
Tree twinkles in the window.
Christmas come bright
Lights on the houses.
Christmas come on TV
Grinch and Rudolph.
Christmas come presents
Did I choose right?
Christmas come stressed
Spent too much.
Christmas come empty
Lost the Christ.
Christmas come sweetly
Children being good.
Christmas come loudly
Noisy party.
Christmas come crowded
At the mall.
Christmas come peaceful
Midnight service.
Christmas come whatever
For whatever, Christmas comes.