This crazy rainy season perseveres.
It’s falling now, and forecast for next week.
But every day the vernal sun appears
uprising earlier, its rays oblique
and strengthening at dawn and dusk, while spears
of daffodils and tulips shoot to seek
the light, their bells on stalks withstanding breeze,
below the growing shade of dripping trees.
(Ottava Rima)
My brother texted the elided phrase,
responding to my latest pal report.
My friend ignores the emails and delays
remittance so, the retailer’s resort
is interrupting service. First no pays,
then fighting prompts, is her outraged retort.
She focuses complaints in one loud rant:
demands they reconnect her, and recant.
(Ottava Rima)
It didn’t work. No matter how we ask,
the only one reliable is I.
Relocating the bins is no big task –
just once a week – but neighbors don’t comply.
They fill the bins but seldom cart them out.
“I’ll help if I’m around,” the young ones said.
But they are here (and studying, no doubt,
apparently disorganized instead).
It isn’t rocket science. If each dwelled
apart, they’d lug their refuse every week.
“Pretend that’s so,” today I whisper-yelled –
“A Sunday job that’s really not unique.
If when you try, it’s been already done,
well, that’s a benefit for everyone.”
She met the woman through the homeschool group,
a refugee from Evangelicals.
They soon became fast friends – among that troupe,
they were the most responsive to the pulls
of liberal originality.
She recognized this comrade was extreme,
her viewpoint black&white in tendency.
But friendship bloomed in mutual esteem.
This BFF helped make her garden grow,
and birthday-gifted her a healthy vine,
but sadly soon let disapproval sow
a rift, a ghosting, more than a decline.
She sacrificed the plant to that demise,
who might have healed the juju, were she wise.
I plan to watch TV tonight, and rest.
I’ve had sufficient company for days,
and though no acts transpired that distressed,
no words offended, there were no displays
of foolishness, maliciousness or messed-
up observations spilled in gross arrays,
my friends and family were gently boring.
Now I’ll indulge in hours of ignoring.
(Ottava Rima)
Perhaps the garden soil wants some food,
or maybe west is not the way to face,
or (likeliest) by too much shade I’m screwed,
but my wisteria does not keep pace
with all the neighbor vines around my place.
Where those abound with blooms, I’ve sparsity,
with scanty buds and stems resembling lace.
I’ll compost, but I’m keeping every tree.
(Ottava Rima)
Supplies for plumbing made her father’s field.
Her granddad and his brothers did it first.
They bought the land their stores stood on, and sealed
the family in wealth as values burst
for Southern California coastal real
estate. But when her faucet broke, her thirst
for new took her to shop on Amazon.
It’s like her sense of heritage is gone…
(Ottava Rima)
Attracted to the winter all my years
(perhaps it was that January birth),
when chill will stimulate, and dark appears
so often it gives firelight more worth,
I can’t ignore the present buds and spears
of vernal growth – renewal on the earth
around. I watch the sunshine sweep my floor
now winter’s gone, but not for evermore.
(Ottava Rima)
The vet about my old retriever said,
“That nose will work as long as beats her heart.”
I think of that, as I view tasks ahead
of me, and make a list, and set apart
my leisure while they’re done. Until I’m dead
I think I’ll have some errands left to start.
I needn’t see them as a stress or strife,
but rather they’re my daily sign of life.
(Ottava Rima)
So used to mini-pretzels and the sweet
of Netherlands, they gave me a surprise –
a choice of little packages, complete
with popcorn or new crackers met my eyes.
I chose two crisps of quinoa snack to eat.
They weren’t bad, and though I don’t advise
that you or I should buy them if we find them,
as mid-day airplane food I didn’t mind them.
(Ottava Rima)
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