Moths
Small moths stir
in the darkness.
I feel their
wings brush my
face, my hands,
remembering the cry
of something unseen.
It is windy
again this morning.
* * *
“Moths” first appeared here in July 2015.
If You Drop Leaves
If you drop leaves when she walks by,
does that signify grief for those
cut down early,
or merely drought?
How easily we abandon and forget.
Yet a whiff of lemon verbena or the light
bouncing from a passing Ford
can call them back,
tiny sorrows ratcheted in sequence
above the cracked well casing
but below the shingles
and near the dwindling shade
tracing its outline on the lawn.
And what do you whisper
alone at night within sight
of sawn and stacked siblings?
Do you suffer anger by way
of deadfall or absorption,
bark grown around and concealing
a penetrating nail, never shedding
tears, never sharing one moment
with another. Offered condolences,
what might you say? Pain earns no
entrance. Remit yourselves.
* * *
“If You Drop Leaves” was published at Bad Pony in November 2017. Many thanks to editor Emily Corwin for taking this piece.
Wet Grass, Weeds
A lone raven
circling the neighbor’s oak,
an oddity in this neighborhood,
lending mystery to the afternoon,
a gateway through dandelion
fluff and the blue seeping through clouds.
A car rumbles by,
stereo hammering the air,
warnings everywhere for the wary.
“Wet Grass, Weeds” first appeared here in May 2016.
Let It Remain
Comfort of name,
of pleasure
freshened in
repetition, unformed
pears falling, and
the mockingbird’s
inability
to complete
another’s song.
I will take no
moment
from this day
but let it remain
here in the knowing,
in the tyranny
of the absolute
and its enforced
rhythm desiring
both flight and
maturation,
the ecstasy
of fruit grown full.
“Let It Remain” first appeared here in September 2015.
Forever
Our dogs hide under the bed,
escaping thunder.
But the sun shatters
a cloud and I know
we will live forever.
Each hour is the sky,
every day, another
star. Now the trees
join the wind
in rejoicing. This
is what we make,
they say. Only this.
* * *
“Forever” made its last appearance here in April 2018.
To the Lovely Green Beetles Who Carried My Notes into the Afternoon
Such beauty should not be bound,
thus I tied loose knots,
knowing you would slip free
and shed my words
as they were meant,
across browned lawns,
just over the cedar fence
or at the curb’s edge,
never to be assembled,
and better for it.
* * *
This appeared in riverSedge Volume 29, Issue 1, released in October 2016, and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second. I first encountered riverSedge in 1983, and vowed that one day my poetry would be published in this journal. It took a while…
You Say Cicada, Which Shrivels My Ears
I say cicada, the difference lurking in the middle,
like the shortest dancer in an off-Broadway musical,
or a note hidden between two reams of legal paper
in the supply room of a well-appointed dentist’s
office, where you find yourself, by accident, searching
for the exit. But think how our sap-sucking friend must
feel, a foot underground, during its final instar phase,
reversing course, leaving behind the darkness
and moist roots, burrowing up through the soil
toward light and the shrug into maturity. And after
that, squeezing through a crack in what had been
itself, emerging, soft and vulnerable, slouching to the
inevitable call. I think of ecdysis, how we, too, shed
ourselves, leaving behind remnants, old skin and
armor, and rising, on occasion, wiser, softer, more
complete. But sometimes we try to reenter those
discarded shells. My acquaintance searches through
the past for bits of himself, purchases toys – marbles,
pocket knives – stitching together a semblance of the
old comfort. He keeps, in one jar, three teeth from his
childhood, in another the exuviae of a half-dozen
scorpions. How delightful it would be, he says, to
abandon your hardened self and become someone
new. He looks to the ground. I nod, and whisper.
“You Say Cicada, Which Shrivels My Ears,” appeared in the inaugural issue of Claw & Blossom, in July 2019. The poem was originally written during the August 2016 30-30 challenge. I’m grateful to Sunshine Jansen, who sponsored the poem and provided three words to be included in the piece: instar, ecdysis, and sap-sucking. Thank you, as well, to editor C.B. Auder for accepting the poem.
“In Praise of Chiggers” first appeared here in August, 2017.
Prescribed
Some seeds are buried, others scattered.
April’s wildflower reflects October’s rain.
Bluebonnet, fragrant gaillardia. Texas paintbrush.
Cause and effect is seldom so clear with people.
Left hand offers money, right strikes a match
and the voice sings praise without conviction.
Perhaps we are guileless,
and true motive lies in the completed deed,
underground or above,
blossoming or charred after the burn.
* * *
My poem “Prescribed” was featured in December 2017 at The Clearing, a British online magazine focusing on landscape.
Thanks to editor Michael Malay for taking this one.