Like some weird parrot, you ride
along for my morning walk,
golden legs akimbo
as you get your bearings.
You peer both up at me and ahead,
large, red, compound eyes
protruding like the ping-pong
eyeballs of a Muppet. This close,
you seem a bit cross-eyed,
pseudopupils appearing
near the ocelli at the center
of your lacquer-black head.
The sun is warm, and halfway
around the block you chirp
thanks and farewell then clatter
off to a neighbor’s crabapple.
They’re 19 years old, at the very least.
The daffodils were there when we moved in. Along with the kid’s signature in the driveway and the weird rose bush that was red the first year, died back to roots, and then was yellow and orange afterwards. An enigma.
They were under the scrubby magnolia tree that has been gone for years. Next to the succession plantings of bushes that subsequently all died too.
Always 2 or 3 white and yellow flowers, never more, despite planting bulbs numerous times, which apparently was just a monumental waste of time and money.
That was enough, and we tried to pull them out, repeatedly. Like a weed, like the mint volunteers that dominate the front planter.
And then buried them deep, inadvertently, during the pandemic..
What wasn’t buried then?
Redid the stairs and built a concrete wall directly on top of them.
We felt a little bad.
Just to watch one. single. daffodil. pop up the next year.
We gave up.
Whatever wants to live SO MUCH. Earned the right to do so in peace.
And now, years later, there’s a bunch, just 2 or 3 white and yellow flowers, never more, half smashed under the wall. Popping up through the snow, when it’s way too cold for anything to grow.
A defiant middle finger in the air to our attempted annihilation.
I feel there is a lesson to be learned from those daffodils.
Despite the lateness of the hour
let me pick up the baton
and start the marching music
once again.
This time I’ll believe in my own power
without need for external instructions.
No one else can hear my song.
The plants were free and dying
Pushed to the side for any takers
Some just limp leafless stems
So I bundled them home
Because that’s what I do these days
Maybe I pampered them too much
Maybe it was blasting We Shall Overcome
Or Richie Havens’ Freedom
Or all that Bob Dylan
One day I had control of the house
The next – instant insurgency
Window sills blooming revolution
Pansies – those cheery protestors
Were the first faces to lead the uprising
Overthrowing their humble beginnings
The Christmas cactus staged a coup
Blooms like birds dashing in all directions
And it wasn’t even winter
The orchids, exotic elitists
Thin foreign cigarettes dangling
Anarchy on their pouty lips
Foxglove fingers raised
In colorful opposition
Declaring diversity
Roses vined their unrest
Through the laces in my shoes
Each step a fragrant minefield
Even the mums have mutinied
Breaking their silence
Like chanting monks
Just a dull woman
I wander through the rooms
Intoxicated by their rainbow awakening
Oh my sweet sweet rebels
My fragrant subversions
A purr in my ear stirred me to wake
for breakfast, the cat needs me to make
nudging gently, pawing at my eye
he coos rightly, “feed me or I’ll die”
What a fine day to let my hair down!
but there are things to be done in town
do you get a decision, yes or no?
when an empty cupboard tells you to go?
There’s enough for coffee, grits, good
Time to munch, over table of wood
just check the news and the emails first
for starters, I don’t know which is worst
Isn’t this a bright sunny day!
the kind we grunt for when we pray
for our backs, fitting on our shoes, we bow
to the sun in the blinds, gotta head out now!
– From Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood: Eli Jenkins’ Prayer”
https://youtu.be/8TsPiNkj6DA?si=Xj6ywKgQH92h28O6
I.
June pours out a deep indigo dye
onto her first blue hour. A robin chirps,
beacons a dawn chorus of wrens, sparrows,
finches. Sky lightens— though wide bands of clouds
cloak the heavens like thick layers of tulle
on a goddess’s dress. We remain still
until our Kentucky cardinal verses
cheer, cheer, cheer and sun highlights the lacey
layers as they twirl up, up. A clear June day
unfolds with blooms of morning glories. White.
I write my dates differently
it’s a more European style
I started in 2020
that year changed a lot.
06/01/20
Could easily be altered to 06/01/2025
and yet
the author of this poem
was not so easily altered
in that semi-decade
twenty-five to thirty years of age.
I moved states and back.
Grew a love and built a family
filled so many holes in myself
picked up the ropes I let slack.
Addressed my mental health
married the woman of my dreams.
Owned two houses
buried two men of my mother’s kin
deconstructed what I once
held as close and as true
as breath itself.
It was a split decision-
the change in format
of writing a date
something I do every workday
I thought it looked more professional
more appealing.
Maybe it was the decision
made for pragmatism and aesthetics
that set me down the path
to be who I am today.
What set each butterfly wingbeat into motion,
crossed the threads of fate,
and strew my life across the constellations?
Had I not changed the way
I write the date
would I be the same me?
Who could say?
It’s too late.
The change has already been made.
affects my ability to see
My face is not hot
The heat is out there
where the beams converge
My head is at 90 degrees
on a grip panning and tilting
I added a spotlight to
shed light and clarity to
get rid of shadows and spill
My light is not hard
it’s soft for color and ambiance
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
—Pablo Neruda
People come and go like the wind,
But what friend, whose lives were connected by the divine –
just…vanish
like dusk slipping quietly
into night.
I shouldn’t be surprised
that this is the price you are willing to pay.
And yet,
after twenty-five years
of deep understanding,
shared prayers,
and soul-spoken dreams—
your silence
feels like a funeral
without a body, not a eulogy.
You left for a girl.
And my God,
I hope she is the one.
Because if not—
who will sit beside your sorrow
when it softens your chest in the quiet hours?
Who will remember the sound of your grief
before it had a name?
Who will whisper prayers for you
when you’ve forgotten how to ask?
You didn’t even give me the chance
to know her.
I would have loved her, too.
in kinship,
because she was loved by you.
Is this what love demands?
That we burn bridges to feel warm?
That the price of being chosen
is forgetting
who knelt beside us
when the world had no altar?
You knew the way my faith folded,
how I bled Neruda from my palms,
believing
that to love
is to live in the ache
of what may never be returned.
And still,
I would have stayed, because that’s what friends do.
Even now—
some quiet part of me
waits
It seems as if in our world today,
We each must choose a side,
And one may be forgiven,
If he should pause to read the tide.
For feelings do run strong these days,
And we give the devil his due,
For feelings often over ride,
Or determine what is true.
I’ve a notion though that truth, you know,
Has more than just two sides,
It’s a multifaceted gem where in,
The luminous truth abides.
My truth may not be yours, you see,
And yours may not be mine,
We each have reasons of perception,
Honed so over time.
And it’s this great diversity,
Of notions, words and ways,
That brightly colors our world around,
And adds interest to our days.
It’s fear that needs conformity,
To soothe the anxious mind,
And offer up false comfort,
Surrounded by but one kind.
Uniformity is comfort,
I can see how that may be,
But I prefer a world where you are you,
I am free to be me.
Therein lies the beauty,
Of this group I’ll label “We”,
May we all be ourselves,
Whomever we were born to be.
