Memorial Day with Red Bird
Does the red bird resting on my budding oak tree, know he stirs my heart?
Does he know the oak tree’s gorgeous, but with him sitting on it, he reminds me life itself is beautiful.
Does he teach me my life and home are wonderful, but when people are added, harmony and joy abound?
2007 Kennebunk
Inspired by Trusha,
[my son’s wife’s sister.]
You are stage three, grade three,
Triple negative,
Bang, bang, bang,
Fear, run, hide.
From across the ocean
An email warns, no!
Beyond all that you are still you.
Yes! pant, pant, true and I calm down.
For I come from a spark with
A soul to define and to nourish me,
I have a light, a path, a destiny.
No, panic no more. I am here.
February 2010, Sudbury
Alive on a Late Summer Afternoon
Above my lush meadow
Invisible to me
Mosquitoes thrive
I see dogged dragonflies cruise,
Feed, outdone only by
Frenzied, hungry swallows
Swirling, high, low, swerving, darting, diving.
And me, from my couch, pondering the finality
Of everything living.
August 2011. A day made solitary by the storm, I wrote a poem on the Boardwalk.
LYDIA
One name she used, simple, waste-free she was.
Linked with beauty, form, a part of nature herself,
she filled her days photographing flowers,
gardening and adorning Sam’s and her soul-filled home
with artful collages of nature, colorful feathers,
wisps of hay, bygone sprays from outdoors.
The little nails she used to hang them on,
over doorways and in rafters, remain,
waiting in her memory.
She will be missed by all she loved.
2011, Crescent Surf
Soul-building
Entwined once, for thirty years, for 30 times 365 days, the twosome
Now lives separately.
Still, their thirty year togetherness
Dwells in their souls.
Unmoved by geography,
Souls remain bound, for
Souls can only add, not subtract.
Forever my soul essence is his and his mine.
Blessed souls, they have dreams to purify their fabric!
Every night 365 nights a year they filter envy,
jealousy, hatred – the nasty agents of the mind–
keeping only love.
January 2012, SMA
Will You Be My Valentine
Time, you silly thing, I can’t see you, can’t hear you, can barely define you.
Yet, I sure can feel you and I know you’re around.
I often think in terms of you, short periods, longer ones and even whole, whole years of you.
You allow me breath and a road to travel on.
So Time, will you be my Valentine?
February 2012, SMA
We Are to Be
To be me, to know myself,
How wondrous.
To be willing,
Courageous, kind,
Creative and fruitful.
To be you, to know you,
My neighbor and friend,
To love, help.
To be aware,
Vigorous and joyful.
To be him, to understand her,
An enemy or a stranger,
To repel rancor,
Evoke generosity and show compassion.
We are to be our Very Best.
February 2012, SMA