Posts for June 2, 2025 (page 16)

Polly Porcupine played piano,
Alex Alligator added accordian,
Danny Donkey danced,
Sally Snake sang–

PADS performed pure poetry,
painting pretty pictures–
porch performance perfection!

There are birds
who’s job it is
to feed other birds

Parents, of course 
dropping appropriate nutrition 
into yellow lined
demanding mouths

and birds at feeders
who toss seeds 
to friends and foes below 

Do they throw the rejects
not worth their effort?
or the prime ones?

do they count-
‘one for me- three for you’?
or is it, totally 
random?

Ground birds clamour
happy and fat

Some seeds escape
-sprout
Sunflowers and thisel

Those days when laundry dried on the line,
I never minded making the beds. Sheets
baked in the sun drank in the summer

soaked up the scent of ripe tomatoes,
bouquet of drying hay, took on the colors
of changing skies and passing clouds.

Sometimes, a brief shower rinsed
them again. In second drying, they
added undertones of petrichor.

Line sheets were crisper than dryer sheets,
more spine and personality. With them,
making the beds became play. 

I tugged corners straight, smoothed wrinkles,
grabbed handfuls of top sheet in each hand,
snapped it out, set it sailing, to arc

then settle soundless as new snow.
I slid pillows into cases, heard 
their sighs as they arrived back home. 

A. Two because one is from Virginia
B. None because they get caught
C. This is no joke
D. Three

black-clad chants
rebound
from courthouse walls

The breath of life is in us as we look toward
embracing the challenges that lie ahead
but that new day never comes.

My faith tells me that the angels come from the
heavens to lift us and take us to the next stop
in our journey, a land of peace and serernity.

This painting of the heavens eases the hurt
and grief faced by those who remain in this
earthly life.

I wake and think I’ll watch the sun
rise over the ocean and wait
until a message in a bottle
beaches in my mind.  

The rhythm of gentle waves
unmoors my boat.
Only water, only sky –
the world has become large  

I hate crows,

I have to say,

They eat my corn,

Then fly away.

Then perch so high,

On overhead limbs,

While I fume and fuss,

And cuss at them.

They set up there,

Above it all,

And laugh at me, 

With their “caw, caw, caw”.

In fits of rage,

My thoughts run toward loaded rifles,

Poisoned fields,

Traps and trifles,

But I remind myself,

Of what I’ve heard,

How they are such,

An intelligent bird.

No doubt, ‘tis true,

As one can see,

I’ve no doubt,

They’re smarter than me.

But I look back,

To those long gone,

How they and these birds,

Once got along.

I’ve heard and read,

How the Cherokee,

Built for themselves,

Bird effigies.

And how these wise,

And wondrous birds,

Avoided fields,

Bearing those interred.

So, with a plastic bag,

Of the blackest sort,

I made a crow,

Which I would disport.

I hung him there,

By his limp fake heels,

As a warning,

In my growing fields.

And I must say,

Much to my surprise,

The crows all gathered,

Before my eyes.

And sang a dirge,

For their long lost kin,

Born from the lining,

Of a garbage bin.

But my boundaries now,

They did respect,

And their o’rehead flights,

They did deflect.

I’m glad to learn,

Of the elder’s ways,

And that I may now,

Here sing their praise.

And I toast the wisdom of birds,

That all may know,

In the end, perhaps,

I do like crows.

not an unknown place  this 
as the deep sea  the edge of space  the vast unknowns humans conjure 
what do we truly grasp?
here  today  I stand 
halfway to where I began  so many years ago 
a child
still

wonder strikes me  sharp and clear   the height  the breadth  the boundless sky 
just as it must have pierced my fresh young eyes 
the rocky expanse  a ridge thrust straight from the earth  snow-dusted divides in June

a child of mine has returned to my original nesting ground  so I visit
and this  too then  one of life’s true wonders  this return seen through another’s life 
a gift to savor   in the weight of age  or perhaps because of it

I haven’t been one for looking back
labeling it reminiscence  nostalgia
my feet favor forward
so this  too  a marvel

is this a link   a profound connection  a marvel mindedness
we humans
unique  or are we
procreation begets awe
to revisit  to revise as the feet keep walking
and wonder