26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Grief, Marriage, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
Kaneohe, Hawaii
Like the hand of a shy lover, the fragrance of gardenias
has a touch too gentle to brush away.
Ruffled by the trade winds, curtain shadows begin to dance
in the sunlight of this emptied bedroom.
When May is gone the white bodies of gardenias will turn brown.
Their petals will drop like dresses slipped out of and abandoned.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Love and Lust, Marriage, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold
and smoke Albert Camus, The Fall
i
I still see you as you rose
those mornings,
light falling gently
on your lean limbs.
We drove through tulip fields,
a patchwork of surreal orange,
yellow, green, purple, red—
a countryside better suited
to a dream.
ii
At Christmas an amaryllis
arrives at my door.
A surprising flower—
it breaks the soil.
A shaft rising to its full height
tense with byways
of waiting—
an epiphany coming—
blooming
with all the colors
of memory,
with all the colors
of you.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Love and Lust, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
O.K. They’re back, he says
breaking into my explanation
regarding the challenges of fundraising.
Who’s back? I ask.
Didn’t you hear that terr-eee?
The redwing blackbirds are here.
He lifts his shoulders as if showing off
a swath of red
across the top of his wings.
Funny, I didn’t hear that, I reply.
Eying the marsh outside my window
I notice now
new green is overcoming
the brown wounds of winter.
He touches my sleeve as I lean
over the sink soaping the dishes.
Should I turn to look
into the dark irises of his eyes,
let my attention take wing?
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Life Reflections, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
Garden math: divide & multiple by Rhonda Hayes
Star Tribune, May 3, 2011
Spring
Who doesn’t love blooming,
The prospect of more?
Tender shoots emerge, stored
energy, divisions moist;
plenty of room for the roots.
Lift out, shake or hose off
the extra. Buds will have the most
vigor. Continue to water
until well established.
Fall
On tangled roots, use a sharp knife.
Trim or remove the dead
centers. It won’t hurt to groom
and weed while you’re at it.
(If you trim half the foliage,
It will be easier to handle.)
Winter
Take a long time to recuperate.
Donate to neighbors and friends.
Bloom again.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
circled our cottage door,
each flower cluster a replica
amassing blue in summer when blue
greeted me everywhere.
Cresting sand dunes, wind whipping
my towel into leggings, I saw
a blue line so stretched out
it had to curve to stay on earth.
Tugged skyward by the taut, unreeling string, I followed
my box kite as it rose, swooped into blue, and when it fell,
I flung it again into the morning wind. Bayside
by afternoon, balanced on snail-coated rocks,
I netted blue-shell crabs, held them
at arms length as Father had taught me,
and, on my way home, listened to their claws scratching
against the inside of my pail.
Evenings, on the screened porch reading by a lamp
set on a table with wobbly legs, I sat side by side
with Nancy Drew. In her blue roadster, we were two
independent girls, driving into the curve of mystery.
After bedtime prayers, I remember distant trains
whistling, always whistling on a straight line
to somewhere curved, somewhere
beyond our cottage, and the blue hydrangeas.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Life Reflections, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
For Mary Junge
The drone of a lawn mower
below this window,
the intermittent hiss
of a sprinkler putting out
the burn of marigolds
in the backyard
makes me wonder
if it is you, Father,
pushing that same old machine.
You who tended the flowers,
bending over their bright
beds when I was just a child.
Here all the children have jumped
off the dock into their last
summer at home. The baby’s
awakened from its nap,
grown up and dashed
into the garden’s full light.
Under this window,
the mower passes by again
cutting away
slowly
at summer.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in adulthood, Childhood, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
For Wills Henry Larson
My grandson is six.
The maple leaves, mint green.
Last night we watered forgotten
flowers, noticed their colors
had turned sad. A wasp at the edge
of the porch worked its way
across its own life.
My grandson laughs and says,
Last night after I went to sleep,
I got up and opened my door.I told him it was a strange,
rainy night for sure.
And a steady downpour this morning.
Eating waffles with maple syrup
we watch rain splash on the deck.
It will save the flowers we missed,
too profuse for us to reach last night.
His mother and father gone
for the weekend. The pines
and maples are entwine in the yard.
For him, at his age, the two of us together
is as natural as the trees.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Life Reflections, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
I carve into the willow trees
love with its small beats,
and over the swaying marsh
my admiration moves.
Overhead floats brother
moth, and higher still,
sister star. I am his breeze
and her mirror.
I throw a smooth oblong stone
onto the pond. Instead of skipping,
it sinks—a prophesy
of something deeper.
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Love and Lust, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
peachcream
nighttide
softcheeked
against
jade
pools
nudging
stillness
leaning
willows
attending
silkhaired
shadows
sinking
while
bronze
flecks
in your
greenbrown
eyes
dissolve
into ruined
eveningsky
26 Thursday Jan 2012
Posted in Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook
Madeline Island, Lake Superior, Wisconsin
In memory of Molly, Peggy Schwarz’s dog
Yesterday, Stockton Island,
Michigan Island, the Porcupines—
all quilted with fog.
This morning they are visible, but remote,
purple behind the watercolors
of Superior’s blue. I wander
the beach with Molly,
whose golden fur ripples in all directions.
I move more slowly, searching
through layers of sand for agates
and other chalcedony.
She stops and turns to see if I am following.
She always wants more time
to weave in and out of coves,
stir the driftwood,
nuzzle her nose in and out
of small caves, bark
at gulls tilting overhead.
I give her that, I’m gathering
rubies striated with pearl,
dark green jade, swirled
clusters of amber, even though
I know the brilliance of rocks
will fade as dreams do
after they are lifted
from the rivers of sleep. I pocket
the ones richest in color. I stop
my search for early morning
jewelry and begin to jog
into the dog’s bright day, picking up
the pace, trying to catch up,
as she fades further from me,
lapping up the fresh morning.