I’ve heard the bird for weeks but haven’t seen
its size and shape, its flight or coloring.
I googled corvid calls – I played umpteen
recordings, but don’t recognize this thing.
Today I got a glimpse of white-edged wing
in glide above the garden, with that squawk
I can’t identify. Not menacing,
but suddenly I’m guessing it’s a hawk.
(Huitain)
An aging tabby in the house next door
extends herself on couchback every day,
to soak in sunshine warming tan velour.
My daughter’s senior dog now has a way
of napping where the furnace warms the floor,
as if the spot’s his private heat array.
I understand. I’ve gotten old enough
that I like they seek body-warming stuff.
(Ottava Rima)
I early chose refusal to a role
that mis-portrayed the person in my soul.
I recollect resisting Mom’s conceits,
rejecting school and synagogue entreats,
combating tries to channel or cajole.
They erred, and I was forced to take control.
I knew if being loved was any goal,
I had to be myself, in falls and feats.
I early chose.
And when advised to fake it (like a mole
in mask who’d sneak-collect approval whole),
from cousin counsels and best friend repeats,
I didn’t bite – I needed other eats.
I couldn’t value love I’d know I stole.
I early chose.
(Rondeau)
I like to think I’m agile, but I’m old.
I walk a lot. I exercise three ways.
But after new exertion, truth be told,
my muscles ache, demand a healing phase,
and then I’m fresh-astonished. Yesterday’s
acquaintance with a baby made me sore!
It’s not bad news – I suffer no malaise –
it’s from a hundred hunkers to the floor.
(Huitain)
The leaf and leak patrols are out in force.
I hear the power mowers, and I see
the EBMUD driver, in his truck of course,
on cell phone while awaiting company.
Surmising leaks they seek to find the source;
our soaring bills denote a mystery.
The residents are diligent and good.
We’re dry and wasting in this neighborhood.
(Huitain)
I’m looking for a water leak, but I don’t have the keys.
I’m urging other folks to speak, by email, writing “please.”
But I of five am still alone – the others won’t afford
the time to work on their own home – as always, my reward
for competence and energy and time
is more to do, and fodder for this rhyme.
The squirrels spiral-argue up the tree,
and tearing bark they chitter-bark back down.
A giant redwood is their armory,
and eucalyptus forms their battleground.
Now crowds of crows send raucous caws around,
while seagulls croon and chickens mutter-cluck,
and chainsaws fill the air with power sound,
invading idyll afternoons by truck.
(Huitain)
About to modify my week’s routine,
about to leave my nest to board a plane,
I hover like a hummingbird between
two blossoms that will fuel me as they drain
my introverted energy. The strain
of leaving sanctuary is the price
I’ll pay for love and sweet return. I’ll gain
more good than pain, and get to come home twice.
(Huitain)
I save the best for last when I’m alone.
That may be evidence my toddler needs
were not well met. I’m old. I have no bone
to pick with folks no longer here or well,
but if I could, I’d take the fattest scone
the platter holds, the richest treat I see.
I’m solo here and years beyond full-grown,
in charge of ordering my list of deeds.
I’ll exercise before I write this poem.
(Magic 9)
I dabbled in Old Norse at 22,
which meant I got Icelandic history.
I learned that when a culture’s in demise,
when petty kings are facing bitter change,
they’re driven to record what’s ending then,
with words and pictures or revolting ways.
When England turned away from rural ways,
toward industry and fenced enclosure too,
its writers penned romantic novels then;
its artists painted dying history.
Such seems a fit reaction to the change
that signifies a cultural demise.
White male supremacy is in demise.
The trends are vectoring to other ways.
We sense for 50 years the winds of change;
we feel perspective modifying, too.
The contours of our future history
have twisted möbius-like, from what was then.
The 60s let us see it coming then.
Not even experts dared foretell demise,
but some of us decanted history.
We contemplated the rambunctious ways
of typical Americans – all too
impulsive to consider how we change.
The predecessors of our climate change,
the air pollution that we measured then,
the toxins and the global traffic too,
all formed the roux that based today’s demise.
Full loudly leaders went their wonted ways
and cooked the books, repeating history.
It’s too late now to turn the history
we’re all about to write. We cannot change
the courses set and stuck in senate ways.
Who gave us wheel and ordered fire then,
were never special. Faced with their demise,
we’re set for ruckus, and for pyre too.
We see their failing ways, and history
will write them too far down, who couldn’t change
the flash and flail, and then came their demise.
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