A Mild Mid-Winter Day

A mild, mid-winter day
soft on my skin
as I walk home
in the late afternoon
grateful
for this moment
and this
and this

Tea & chocolate

Tea & chocolate
Stretched out on the couch
under my youngest son's blanket
bathed in golden sunlight
not working!
reading a novel
not a great novel
just a story
about a woman
who is not sure which way to turn.
Maybe life is like a garden.
You could design it this way or that
and it would probably be
just fine either way,
there are probably lots of ways
it would be really lovely.
And Nature will come in and do
Her own majestic and messy things,
too.


December 27, 2009

Runes

Leaves scattered
like runes on the sidewalk
portents, prophesies
glistening, serpentine ribbons
slug trails
signs
telling of the past and
foretelling the fall to come.
And the little black squirrel
filling his belly
with scarlet dogwood berries
relishing this warm
September day.



September 15, 2009

Yes! There are dogwood berries. But look quick,
or they'll all be gone

I hear someone's spoon

I hear someone’s spoon
clinking on a cereal bowl
craving sustenance
a teenager abroad in the night
stepping away from imming
looking out the window above the sink
into the velvety darkness
should be in bed
not quite done with homework
not quite done with life for the day
ready for more
and his mother’s upstairs
hoping that he gets it
and that it’s everything he hopes for.


January 31, 2008

For Arran, my 17 year old son
who left this week for France.
xo

Summer Wanes

Summer wanes
but it’s doing it with some
pizzazz,
some splash and flair.
Thunder storms crackle,
summer annuals are rich with
flame-colored blooms,
and while the cicadas
are winding down (the husks
of their huge green and black
bodies are sadly starting
to litter the sidewalks)
their confreres the snowy
tree crickets and katydids
are thrumming in the tree tops,
squirrels are scurrying
(there’s a little black one
dashing along my fence
right now), and the farm market
overflows with goodness,
corn, peaches, tomatoes, herbs
and greens, so death
is just a whiff, a note in
the singing symphony so full
of life and juice and the
tap-dancing celebration
that is summer’s end.

August 23, 2009

A Life Experience Waiting for the Bus

I sat on a bench in the shade
in Lenox town square, waiting
for the Peter Pan to Providence.
Two benches down
a noisy family shouted to
each other rather than spoke.
They seemed kind of crude,
even vulgar.
They picked up all their things
and joined me,
kind of engulfed me, a mom,
an unidentified man, and a teenage
girl (who could have been a boy,
with androgynous length hair)
large, wide people, waddling my
way. With an unexpected,
uncalled for sweetness they
took it upon themselves to
ascertain my level of experience
with the Peter Pan bus line,
and to provide me with
all the information necessary for
my comfort as a traveler, most
especially the important fact that
the bus driver on this route is fond of
air conditioning and I might freeze
without a jacket handy.
The girl, who lives in some kind of
home and travels to her real
home on the Peter Pan bus line
periodically,
Insisted on carrying my heavy
suitcase for me and is not entirely
100% with us, but is as sweet
as can be and
looked so joyous
running back and forth to
the corner to watch for the bus
with her mother’s big old
sweater flapping around
her waist.

April 21, 2008

Saturday Morning

Saturday morning
ripe with the pleasure
of summer and family
books to read
lazy sun
juicy peaches
farm market
neighborhood errands
friendly hellos
smile on me, life,
smile on.






July 26, 2008

Sticky Cool

Sticky Cool

It's a sticky cool summer evening
on the terrace.
One sticks to the chair a little
but there's enough of a breeze
barely a zephyr but enough
to imagine
that one is someplace exotic
especially because the
father and son having dinner
nearby are speaking in a
mysterious language.
So while I wait for my son to
finish baseball practice down
the road I am far away
drinking water on a terrace
urbane and alive
at one with the sticky cool
universe.



July 21, 2008

Raining & Raining

It’s been raining and raining
this summer
and there’s been thunder
rolling over the landscape
and torrential downpours
soaking through shoes
puddles and rivulets
streaming down the sidewalks
and the daring art of dashing
between unpredictable deluges
has been busily practiced
all across town…
Rosenny and I arrived at our
destinations soaked through
to the skin, which is not
fashionable, especially when
it has stopped raining and
everyone else (having driven)
arrived dry as a bone.




June 21, 2009

Sudden puddles!

The moss and lichen like it :)

The ineffable fragrance of you

I trod across the hillside
rounded the corner
and was stunned
by the ineffable fragrance
of you.
Suddenly I became all
about finding you,
buried in woodland thicket,
the cause of this glorious infusion,
this piercing, classic, delicious
only-in-springtime aroma.
And there you were, modest
in size and appearance, but
Empress of the lands around
you, and I your slave.


May 28, 2009

The delicious, common, road-side honeysuckle

The Procession of Spring: There she is!

There she is!
In all her pretty
ruffled glory--
the first peony,
the zenith of
spring incarnate, with
opalescent petals of
maximum floriferousness,
serious star power
in the kingdom
of springtime,
for all to admire
and adore
in her fleeting moment
of gorgeosity!



May 2008

I just wanted to hide in the moment

I just wanted to hide in the moment
A dappled woodland part
of my walk to work
curl up in a furl of sunlight
twittering birds
peaceful lull
light breeze brushing my skin
forever here
not there
in the beginning of a work day
but here
with the song of the cardinal
and bluebell.

April 14, 2008

Watering the plants

Watering the plants this morning
watching the stream of water
pour out from the hole
in the bottom of the pot
watching until it started
to break up into streaks
and then drops
individual, shimmering,
radiant spheres,
drops that are so, so beautiful,
I can’t even tell you,
so beautiful.

May 24, 2008