By transit home today, I’m feeling irked.
It’s taking too much time and drags a mood
already low, a spirit overworked,
to heavy slog and whine. My attitude
is tentative. I’m hungry. I need food
for mouth and mind and anything but grief.
Arriving with an itch for solitude,
I take in avocado with relief.
(Huitain)
She fell again, and so she has to stay
downstairs, although for home she’s filled with yen.
They planned to help her move today, but hey:
she fell again.
She doesn’t bless and never says amen.
We haven’t known our mom to kneel or pray.
But she complains a lot, and whines for when
the docs and staff give moving their OK.
She says she won’t approach herself till then,
but she mis-gauged the seat and found dismay:
she fell again.
(Roundel)
Inhabiting this cottage 14 years,
I haven’t changed its footprint, outer walls
or roofline, but the rest of it appears
improved since I established residence.
The latest demolition (new frontiers)
removes bamboo and ivy to expose
a heap of lava rock, a pipe that rears
above the fence. We saw until it falls,
and start six succulents, like volunteers.
(Magic 9)
Expecting sale proceeds mid-week, I found
the transfer happened half a day before
the estimate. Now liquid funds abound,
but I don’t have big purchases in mind,
and I should bury assets in the ground
(or mattress or financial firm account)
to cover an emergency that’s bound
to happen soon or sometime else, for sure.
Old worry ebbs today, as coins compound.
(Magic 9)
I used to hold my mask when out alone.
I donned it when I saw, at 30 feet
or so, a stranger entering my zone,
but noted that the other had complete
mask on, no matter who was on the street.
My neighbors thought more barrier preferred,
while I made other sense of fact and word.
Of late the rules are loosening. We’re told
we don’t need masks when we’re alone outside.
I tote a mask to wear where goods are sold,
on public transit, or when crowds abide,
but mostly I can be identified.
My neighbors, though, re-mask at 30 feet,
as if new rules are wrong or incomplete.
(Rhyme Royal)
Our luck was easy traffic, gentle breeze,
and soft blue heavens shot with cotton clouds.
But when we passed the fields that held few trees,
the parch of desiccation lay like shrouds
on thirsty dirt that isn’t worth a plow
this year, with drought and dire threat around,
and odds of fire blanketing dry ground.
(Rhyme Royal)
Outside and unmasked,
bathed in light and rinsed in breeze,
we hugged each other.
We drove 6 hours and the big surprise
was blue and white and vast above the car.
The sky and clouds were tonic for my eyes,
delighting me before we traveled far.
The journey soothed and made me realize
how long I’ve gone with neither cloud nor star,
confined by plague and fenced by walls and trees,
preoccupied with our calamities.
(Ottava Rima)
Last year on March 13 we made the drive,
enjoyed a weekend on our brother’s farm,
returned to face a virus grown to thrive
and lockdown to reduce pandemic harm,
that launched a year and several weeks of strange:
the battle mask; debates about hygiene.
We felt perspective shift and health derange,
in nervous expectation of vaccine.
We still don’t understand the facts or trust
much news, most politicians, rumor mills.
We’re doing what we’re able, to adjust
to civil (not) and pan-infectious ills.
We’re driving to the farm again, today,
as if catastrophes have gone away.
I slept in till 7 today –
a symptom, a clue and a sign
that lately I’m choosing to pay
the price my affections define.
For weeks I’ve consented to play
all roles love and promise assign.
I rose and read myself. I stress-confessed,
and can’t ignore the wisdom of a rest.
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