Billet-doux:

They’re back.
Annual visitors
like winged stems
surface from the river
cling to our screened porches
like shades
obstructing our view,
as if to say: This river is ours.
We’ll give it back when we’re ready.

A pretty, tan, petite
woman judged my items
at the consignment store.
How pretty you are, I thought,
as she bent over the
clothes I had placed
on the counter.
She looked at me
quizzically,
“Excuse me?”
I felt myself blushing.
Had I spoken my thought?
Should I tell her
that I have always
envied her look,
confident and assured
by the advantages that come
with being pretty?
I glanced at a consigned figurine
standing to the side of my pile,
a Bo-peep with shepherd’s crook
in her delicate hand.
I held it and said,
“How pretty you are,”
and the consignment lady
turned back to my clothes.
“Yes, she is, isn’t she.”

Unassuming
with a touch of humility
cultivated through the years,
the Mayapple – Podophyllum Pelatatum
grow in woodland patches
of humus, layers of leaves
dry and wet blanket their bed
as stalks push through in early
spring when the nights are
cool and you least expect to find
a commune of wildflowers.  Leaves
wrapped tight
like the green of a new cut lime,
waxed, shiny canopy unfurl delicately.
Large leaves, nature’s umbrellas open
over delicate flowers on each stem, 
a hanging surprise popping like a
jack-in-the-box, the rhizomataus
colony cascades along the corridor
of the walking path, spilling down the
edges of the ridge.

Today we tour
the house and garden
in Giverny of the great

Claude Monet,
and afterward
the palace of Versailles.

As a carpenter 
it’s difficult to deny 
the decadent grandeur 

of Louis the 14th’s
fantastic folly,
but even still

I’d trade all
the gilded decoration 
of that grotesque 

mansion he had made
by hands of man
to compare himself 

to God, for just
one ounce of light
spilled out

across those flowered
grounds of Giverny.

Long live 
the revolution!

I step into the shower, eager
Luxury shower accessories await  

Perfect bottles, tiny print
Up close I can’t tell  

Shampoo
Conditioner
Body wash
I take my chances  

And now my face is silky smooth
Untangled from thoughts
Of what might have been

Breath hitches in my chest

Ragged and panting

Uneven, laboured

Steadily plateauing

Only for you to take it away again

I rose early before the heat,
while the grass, still wet with dew,
glistened in watery dreams.

Clawing out weeds that would
choke the heart of such singular
beauty – black dirt clinging to hands
and forearms. Sweat dripping a 
salty prayer. I protect the tender bud.

My lisianthus, a flower so much
like a rose, with fleshy unfurling petals,
sans thorns and trellis, do not
like their roots disturbed.
No one really does. Do they?

In another garden, toil and words
are lost on the rootless man.
He carries his hate in a golden suitcase,
opens it in his paved garden,
and says, “How beautiful.”

+

Shore birds skitter duneward
while the wave break deposits
morsels for them to peck
from the cooling sand.

Coastlines form battle trenches
between the hungry maw
of ocean and the structures
of avaricious developers.

The deeps are patient.
Between the wild and swirling dark
and the hourglass sands of man
watery tendrils siphon civilization.

Those who push against nature
break the peace for the rest of us.
Global warming or watery graves.
Fire & Ice.