I avocado-hunted yesterday.
Abundance is no January theme,
but I attempt to make my salads gay
these homebound weeks, and avocados seem
a treat, in guac or served most any way.
I captured four. I know their color scheme –
organic local’s large and incomplete,
but three from Mexico I soon will eat.
(Ottava Rima)
I drank too much when I was 28
and circumstances moved me, after work,
to meet a friend, to talk and celebrate
or air complaints about my boss – a jerk –
and other stressors bound to nag or irk.
She taught me – “Be aware of where you are.
Don’t ever lay your head down on the bar.”
(Rhyme Royal)
The lemon tree’s a dwarf and in a pot,
and though the garden’s shady, most the plants
are thriving whether weather’s good or not,
but that poor lemon never had a chance.
No matter where, it drooped like it forgot
the path to prosper and the sunlight dance,
until I boosted water, food, and care –
today I see a perfect lemon there.
(Ottava Rima)
She hates her mom, resents her, and ignores
her now she’s old and dull and not aware.
I told her toxic feeling rusts and scores
the soul, suggesting that perhaps she’d care
imagining severity and sores
in mother-history. She won’t go there.
Her peace does not abide in shrink, on shelf,
because she has to first forgive herself.
(Ottava Rima)
At 40, when life seemed to run amuck
for everybody’s then and future play,
I found I kept reiterating “Fuck!”
But I kept living, till there came the day
when I moved to the mantra of “Ok-a-ay.”
Of late our world is worse – beyond absurd –
and now the query “Really?” is my word.
(Rhyme Royal)
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but still,
reiterating doesn’t waste a page.
I woke this morning nearly feeling ill,
or better put, I felt my awful age.
I thought I’d skip the exercise, engage
in elderly pursuit instead but then,
I heeded counsel from my inner sage –
I moved, and now feel middle-aged again.
(Huitain)
Been making salad all these homebound days –
tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and seeds,
balsamic-dressed, with grated cheese arrays,
and avocado (most my body needs).
But as this plague obnoxiously proceeds,
there had to come a day without the last.
Postponing unripe fruit for future feeds,
with thinner toss of lunch I broke my fast.
(Huitain)
It’s anecdotal – my experience
of how the world is doing around here.
I don’t have stats – I may not make good sense
but then again, the news airs pain and fear,
and government has lost the nation’s trust –
its agencies are jokes but no one laughs.
My pride in place is dulled, and toxic rust
is etching us with dire epitaphs.
From my perspective, no one caught a cold
the first pandemic year – no common flu
beset us while we put our lives on hold,
but now there’s wounds and illness breaking through.
Intestinal infections, broken backs –
the health of friends and family shows cracks.
With Covid socializing, there’s a rule,
unspoken but complied with in my crowd.
Without offense or aiming to be cruel,
the most conservative prevail. Endowed
with kids or stuck in caution’s vestibule,
the edge of spectrum says what’s not allowed,
and sometimes makes me glad to stay away
from anxious moods of panic and dismay.
(Ottava Rima)
I’m sitting in a puddle of anxiety.
I feel a little swamped with dark unease
about our present plague and future destiny –
I dread regression, and the rising seas,
and getting older, frailer, losing words and blood
and friends who move or die in form or soul.
But I won’t extricate myself from tepid mud;
I’ll acclimate again, and learn control.
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