Nights are too short, dear
when you are here.
Nights are too long
when you are gone.
Morning weeps humidity.
Birds sing sad songs.
Bees wander aimlessly.
The sun hides a weary face.
Voices sound too loud.
Emptiness becomes full measure
of the hearts lost treasure.
Garden critters stay hidden.
Fruit on the vines wither,
bitten open, useless, forbidden.
Your leave-taking reminds.
The world can be coldly unkind.
You rose with the dawn.
Showered, and now, are gone.
Filed under POETRY
Night grows stronger
as sun delays no longer
to set beyond cloud covers,
dragging our nights
up to our chins and over our days.
Clouds linger, in comfort, like old friends.
Rain of tears express our reign over joy and sorrow
pouring down on each tomorrow
to ease the heat encompassing us all.
Sky’s waters flood the senses
and tear down trees and homes and fences
which separated us before our fall.
With no direction and little discretion,
increasing speed, we set climate’s pace.
Caught up in the flow we pick up the pace
of this race to our self-destruction.
In our own darkness
the rains came.
Life will never
be
the same.
Filed under POETRY
Cold air is heavier.
Its density
has a propensity
to hold us in place,
inside,
asleep.
It is enough
to make one weep
who loves the heat.
I welcome it
for its cooling property,
its innate ability
to calm and soothe
the painful reality
of an overheated,
seemingly defeated,
world once at peace.
Oh, it was but a brief
moment in time
when hope was alive
and the country thrived,
and nations strived
to help democracy
overcome autocracy.
But, I digress
under great stress.
Cold air is weighted
with shards of ice
torn loose from northern fields,
with such power to wield
that it weighs down sunrise,
to no one’s surprise.
It puts the worker bees to sleep.
They awaken inside flowers
lacking the power
to find their way to their hives.
Cold air makes dreams
more difficult to bear,
their messages too heavily aware
of all the world’s problems
fair and unfair.
Autumn is here
and the world bows down
under the new weight.
Winter is not far away.
I cannot wait!
As sun rises the only sound
is the song of geese southward bound.
I place the heating pad round
a sore back from bending down
to plant bulbs squirrels have already found.
Soon, snow will coat the frozen ground.
We keep thinking
it cannot become any worse
this placid earth
awash in excess or in drought.
Hibiscus big as dinner pates
strung among drenched leaves,
hangs in drooping loops to the ground.
Sun makes its way warily
through clouds weighing the sky down,
new-born leaves water-logged and drowned.
The heavy weight of watered threats
is nearly too much to bear.
Too heavy to breathe, saturated, air
keeps me waiting inside,
Parched lips and dry-aged skin
too thin to accept such weight again,
hangs loose, losing all pride;
jealous of the hibiscus
which still stands tall
strong enough to resist it all.
I anxiously await a break in the clouds,
days of hope and rest in the sun.
Even the earth is in tears these days.
Like a child I hold my sign and sing aloud
“Rain, rain, go away. Come again
another day.” Or not. Never again
should we women and men
so misbehave and reduce our gardens to tears.
We often think that Spring brings our first hopes
of a new life, a new world, a new cause to celebrate.
We need not wait for Spring to hope.
Eight inches of snow fell silently and cloaked
the surfaces of note that set our scene,
a scene fearfully bleak which clouds all thoughts
of a fearless life, and hides the fear which lies below
our greatest hopes, limited by what, we do not know.
We fear the worst after watching the news
meant to keep us watching, our nerves hanging on every word.
Snow!
Snow changes our landscape in a moment.
The deeper the snow, the greater the wind,
the more we see of all the possibilities
to change the world we ache to know.
All darkness and decay disappears by end of day.
White whorls of snow cover every branch of every tree,
and shrub and shed. No tracks yet made by others
who share this place with me.
The sun rises in a fiercely blue sky and tracks appear
upon the new world of white light strewn across its face.
Snow!
Snow allows us to dream we can make all clean.
Our purity glows within each crystal caught by sunlight,
raising our spirits, capturing our innocence.
We believe we can change, too. All is right in a world draped in white.
My first hope does not wait for Spring.
It comes alive at the sight of the first big snow.
Snow reminds me that landscapes can change swiftly,
purely, beautifully aglow. Even war’s wounded landscapes
appear at peace when covered in snow.
Impoverished neighborhoods where crime rules breathe softly covered in snow.
Snow!
Summer wears her heart on her sleeve.
Her false smiles and beguiling ways
encourages all to believe
that she is available to play flirtatious games.
But, know that Summer will always have her way.
She drags us away from kitchens, desks
and comfy chairs out into her garden on display.
She allows us to become more aware
of her silken charms directed our way.
Droughts and cloudbursts,
sun that brightens and burns our skin,
Allergens and particulates that settle within
make it hard to breathe in her presence.
Her insects sting and guilelessly bite
while Summer’s flower-perfumed essence
awakens and entreats our most intimate senses.
It would be so easy to love Summer. She puts us to the test
against Autumn, Winter and Spring as to whom we love best.
Summer has become a little too free for me.
I prefer a season who holds back her charms
and grants me shy glimpses which raise no alarms.
As Earth heats Summer’s gaze, subtlety fades away.
Summer has become almost too bold,
too sure of her dominance, too unsafe
to simply play our Summers away.
Filed under POETRY
Women fret and stew because they feel
with blood and sinew, hands and heels.
Each breath they take is a timeless hold
on the history of family and friends so bold
it carries all aloft to a future filled with bliss.
The nesting instinct is nothing less
than continuation of species and best
embraced and supported as what it is;
our best hope for survival in peace,
in world fractured by power and greed.
Women seize their freedom in both hands.
Women march and take stands against tyranny.
Women need never ask for self-rule of their bodies.
They already hold their own agency.
Only blind men fail to see
powerful women could set them free.
WE ARE THE WORLD
While children here sing
“Rain, rain go away.
“Come again another day.”
China seeds the clouds above
and firefighters ask for aid
to battle flames that spread so wide
there is no place for lungs to hide.
Fragile systems bend and break
as I lie in my bed alert, awake
to all the trauma in the world;
clutching hands which hold out hope
to help heal damage beyond their scope.
All that seems real are nerves afray
and hands held in prayer for better days.
For days when birds again find their way
among the butterflies and bees.
When war engines fall into disrepair
and children frolic and play free
of worries that hide
in thoughts of suicide.
We are the world. The world is us.
the world hangs in the balance
of hands held in trust.
Reach out your hands enjoined to others.
Earth’s survival truly depends on us.
Filed under POETRY
what use words
when loneliness fills
wells long in drought
where the only wet thing
wipes ink on the page
while we die of thirst
waiting.
Rivers flow with water and blood
above earth’s bedrock and my own
carved out from the beat of a steady flow.
Banks erode, sometimes
bursting, or crumbling slow.
Older beds are no longer smooth;
broken branches snagged
and embedded roughly in the
now-gravelled surface below.
My skin and earth’s, bruised
and channeled by our river’s glow.
As the drying out continues
to thicken and slow
river’s course is brought low.
Finally, so dry it comes to an end
and our efforts to amend
cannot stop its final show.
Dried rivers of water or of blood
cannot sustain life
while we foolishly wonder
“Where did the rivers go?”
Filed under POETRY
The heat of the night
left a scorched dawn.
Crimson and gold flames
marched across earth’s brow.
Silence held court
over insect and birdsong.
Canons blew measured beats
throughout the night to face
ceasefire at dawn.
Even the cicadas are silenced
under the strain of clouds
threatening a refrain of rain
over and over and over again.
The battlefield of flowers
hold the whispered beat
of life-sounds’ defeat.
There is a beauty to such calm
where life is pinned down
to lie in wait for safe return
of cooler days and nights.
One could choose weariness.
One could choose delight.
Filed under POETRY
