This afternoon the vulture couple
sit stoically on the limbs
of the long dead tree in the preserve.
The rain was torrential
as we watched from the dry
confines of our home, they
stood soaked to the feathers
with nowhere to hide, knowing
they couldn’t out fly or out climb
the purging clouds, so they set
soaking wet and stared at us.
And then I knew, just looking
at them, that while I felt sorry
for them perched in a downpour
they felt the same for us, we
unable to know the joy of flight.
Here we measure seasons
by small changes in temperature
and for one, heavy rainfall.
We are the calendar reliant,
otherwise left to look at the moon
and count to ascertain roughly
what month it might be, but
we now live in a solar calendar
world so our lunar efforts
are necessarily doomed to failure.
And holidays are different here,
Christmas has no snow,
so we decorate our palms
and perhaps have inflatable
snowmen or reindeer, and hang
icicles from our gutters as
a reminder of what winter
is for so many other than us.
I wrote down the biggest
mistakes I made in life
on the backs of newly fallen
maple leaves, and carried them,
a fair number, to the river.
I cast them onto the water,
some quickly swept up,
a few lingering on a fallen
tree partially damming
the flow, waiting for this.
Most disappeared as
the water approached
the falls, cascaded over
on its way to the waiting lake
and then to a place unknown.
This was an act of catharsis,
for the maple, if not for me,
a freedom, not to bear
the burden of impending winter,
frozen still with regrets.
The dawn cedes slowly
to the impinging sunlight
birds greet the new day
The great egret lifts
her wings embracing the cloud
the winter sun smiles
on the barren branch
the red-shouldered hawk awaits
her mate and the sun
sandhill cranes wander
along the shore of the lake
looking for nothing
the moon is a cup
waiting for night to fill it
venus sits empty
Once the winter stars
wrapped in their cloudy shroud
shed frozen tears, unwilling
to come out of hiding.
We searched for them in vain,
knowing our failure,
retreating to the warmth
of home, only to repeat
the failed effort on so
many other nights.
Now, here, the winter stars
are usually fearless,
some drowned by the moon,
but she waxes and wanes
and they reappear, the brightest
never fearing the chilled sky.
We stare at them in wonder
having forgotten for so many
years just how beautiful
they can be in their glory.
There is a strange beauty
in the slow loss of sight,
for there is a progressive
transition, a discovery
of much that went unheard,
unfelt, missing in the glare
of the need to see, to categorize
and organize, memories
neatly arranged in an array
of curated visual files.
But without sight what once
was cast aside as noise is
an intricate tapestry of sound
and undistracted, you begin
to see the individual threads
to see deeply into the art
and craft of the unknown weaver.
Without sight, you so often
store images in two dimensions
but now requiring touch,
everything is three dimensional
of necessity and the world is
infinitely more complex
and yes beautiful than you recalled.
And the darkness of night, which
marked a border that dared not
be fully crossed grows meaningless
and hours once lost may again
now demand to be lived.
First published in Bard and Prose, June 2022
https://bardandprose.com/category/poetry/
The leaves will soon begin
their descent from the small tree,
already brown, their beauty
departing before they do so.
They are bilobular, an odd word,
but one that belongs in a poem,
even this one it seems, and it is
their shape that you first notice.
The tree will all to soon be naked,
branches sticking into the air
as if searching for a breath
that refuses to arrive.
But we know that soon after
the small buds will open
and orchid-like flowers will appear
to our all too temporary joy.
She says her favorite month
is May, when spring’s grip
is tightest, but most of all
she cherishes the rain.
She is intimate with the rain,
there is a privacy that only
she can concede, if she wants.
She can take a drop of rain
and it is hers alone, she need
only share it with the sky,
it is always clean on her tongue.
She may borrow rain
from the trees, catch it
as it slides from leaves,
or watch it slowly tumble
from the eaves of the house
she remembers from childhood.
She loves walking barefoot
through fresh fallen puddles
as it washes bitter memories
into the willing earth.
First published in Creatopia, Issue 5, Spring 2022
https://creatopia.studio/creatopia-collection-magazine/spring-2022-renewal-magazine/
Of course when we lived
up north we wouldn’t
have imagined this, sitting
on our lanai watching the sun
set the patchy sky ablaze
sipping small glasses of port
and wondering if a light
jacket might be in order,
as the beaver moon
of November waxes slowly.
The cat, curled at our feet
cannot imagine the icy wind
howling down the street,
the foreboding clouds offering
their first flakes, knowing
this is a small taste of what
nature will bring forth
before we could again sit
in shirtsleeves on our porch.
We do not like to admit
that nature laughs at us
as we pretend to bend her
to our will and desires.
We dam and reroute rivers,
but the river knows well
that it will return, flow
where it wishes, for it
will be here long after
we have returned to the soil.
Still, now and again nature
grows weary with our meddling
and unleashes her fury
in ways we are incapable
of stopping, and laughs
when we seek divine
intervention from the utter
depths of our powerlessness.
an old writer and his words 