Last week we flew from Minneapolis to Orlando. After a conference we drove to the Everglades and stayed with friends at the Everglades Spa and Lodge. What a relief from winter here, back home. Upon landing and pulling up to the gate, the captain said, "You might want to put on a coat. It's 8 below on the jetway." Reality sets in. But there is a memory . . .
Everglade Winter
Everglade weather in winter
and perfect sight
brilliant where color of flora
and fauna song calling
meet with grand appetite
to compete with each other.
Variety to match the many legs
of mangrove and egrets
still reflection
with the exception
of eye, nostril and bumps
floating, sunning or waiting for lunch.
Mud, grass and brackish swirl as the tide.
Swamplands give way to dense wood
green waves and vine bush
hiding more wildlife—
unseen and some near.
What wildcat? Raccoon.
And a deer’s leap only heard as we pass.
Long islands on a sea of sawgrass
with the flow
from Ochechobee
Vistas also spotted by an archipelago
of cabbage palms and palmetto
each matched by a patch of sky white.
An echo-song calling
‘cross colors and water—
A memory repeating
as we are retreating.
Once conquered by weather
We relax in the note of this song
in the season when
Everglade winter sets in.
Sheep Dogging
Celebrity makes it possible
for all to drop a name
was it Reagan or John Wayne
who coined "Make my day!"?
And because one says, oh so sincerely
"I too have a dream!"
does it mean his truth rings true
to Martin Luther King?
Just because we know the jargon
of stump and social standing
it does not mean we speak the truth
but just in sheep-dog ranting.
rattle key and chatter of the rats
their echo halts my freedom dreams
by iron clank and clatter seems
to resonate in grinding off
the dross and reverie of loss
sound now low note of gate unlocked
drown out the chorus as I'm mocked
by enemy most, some were friend
all in this creaking song of time
rust still breaking in its whine
awaken now a thirst within
hidden by that ancient sin
knowing now I drop from bone
a cover drawn against the cold
to rise and pass steal door and go
I leave by these steep steps of stone
and cross the halls of reckoning
through corridors of jeering souls
this walk through time and now: sunshine
to freedom's wooden framed gallows
Recognizing the beauty of a floweror joy in the face of a babyis not by degreeor pitch of exclamationbut by a sacred respectonly hinted at by glint of eyeor the smile held close in its brilliancemore a secret in the love song to God.Fireworks express full freedomwhen truth is of the heart--for toll of ocean wavescrash long on shoresinhabited or not.With the whack of a racket ballcatching the morning trainor love-making ecstasy--each prayer is heard
by breath of heart
.
Grandpa's Wagon
Grandpa told his stories
In a mind of other time:
When I was young
I had a wagon
Green and gold letters--the words
Don't know what the writing said
Stoked full and pulled
From Pa's woodshed.
I liked my little wagon
Green and gold.
And when the wheels got old and broke
Too many heavy loads
Pa replaced them with four runners
Lined with steel for snow and ice.
I liked my wagon sled
And new one painted red.
We stoked a lot of wood
In snow and rain
Grandpa always said.
I can hear
My daughter's daughter
Say, Granddad
Can we go out and play?
.
december morn
before horizon's gift
just hints its blue contrast
to roof's white pack aglow
and framed by branches rack
of turning textures brown
from spirits standing now
in skeletal remains
of images once green
then spread in red man's blanket
and sleeping under drift
yet deep within
an urge to spring
still silence
in the frigid forms
outside this window
warm inside
we squirrel in nest
recalling fall
and summer's hold
before horizon's gift
this frozen morn
love these gifts of space and line
they're mine to retrieve and write
whatever addition to history
becomes the moment in poetic accord
for space is never wasted
by minds creative and sailing
on the sea of imagination
Between now and the future
is forever, and the past -- but a memory
that goes forward
like a kitten, a lion or a lamb.
Is my direction from love
power
or hope?
When the power of love is realized
hope is consumed by a certainty beyond reason
and no calamity
or inconsistency
will defeat
the newborn's breath
and the innate claim
to divine inheritance.
Growing Rose
What love is it that chooses heart’s direction?
Talent never learned this life
But lived like bees to honeysuckle’s center
To one an awkward duty
Another makes it dance.
Are we not followed on the road to choose
By choices other than our own?
Our map in math or science knows
Growing rose and radish
An easy work of art.
Start to feel connection with life and tools of craft
In school what luck would have the leaders
Follow heart and soul?
There is more than light and scent
To growing rose.
Battles Past
Stark beauty in this lone, dead tree
When fall of three or five years past
Released last leaves of summer's dream.
Now shadow cast in spindle ribs
Its trunk still bold yet barren of its armor coat
White ghost, now free
From bark of battles lost
And littered at its feet
Past robes are shed and show
In each noon light.
This spirit of ancient arbor stands
On field of reverie.
Lone, dead tree recalls
All autumn-colored dreams
In some ten thousand scattered seeds.
This morning of days(Kitty haiku)
Awake with tea, we visit
With Jonathon's cats
Crow knows the score in barren oak
Repeats the toll of winter
Sunshine
White cloud
Autumn leaves have fallen
Crow knows the score of winter winds
Snowflakes not yet drifting
When you speak,
I hear the poetry
of Keats and Rumi.
When you laugh,
their muse of angels
sing through me.
Now your memory
is an island
on the sea of silence.
(rev. 12/30/07)
