The Farm Cats

Where do the farm cats go when it rains?
In the absence of moonlight, do they get lost in the maze?
Do they hunker down among the aging corn,
with their fur puffed up and their eyes squeezed shut
or do they stick out their tongues
to catch the raindrops and splash in the puddles
while the farmer is sits inside
and eats
his soup?.

The Gardeners

The gardeners are out,
the gardens transformed
into neat little plants
unhindered by neighbors
sitting alone
in deep rich soil
they mirror their owners
while I
cultivate my weeds
growing randomly
this way and that
like my thoughts
and my words
they are not rich
but they are
prolific.

My lilacs, like me, are late bloomers,
struggling on the side of a rocky hill
between the cactus and the pine,
they manage to bring forth flowers
while holding off the
unwanted attentions
of the brash forsythia.

Like an awkward adolescent, 

the queen anne's lace 

grows unnaturally tall,

lean and lanky, 

in the summer heat 

and does not realize

how beautiful she really is.

Illusion

The undulating heat waves 

rise up from the miles of 

ever-increasing black top,
creating a wavy wall of illusion,
telling us that we are
detached from our world,
safe in our air conditioned buildings
living our virtual lives
until the heat is gone.

Skeleton trees stretch their gnarled branches

to the cold grey sky,

reaching their arthritic fingers

past the falling snow.

Our joints ache.

Where are the stars, Lord?

They used to hover

in the sky,

scintillating, moving,

as though alive

Huddled together

in numberless throng

like angels

orchestrating an eternal song.

They are not there--

I've searched for them at night.

We've frightened them away

with self-centered, artificial light.

We animate our nights with

artificial glare

until we can not see

that You are there.

Teach us to see the stars again, Oh Lord.

Help us to find them

and our faith

restored.

Red, gently applied over yellow

with a dry brush.

Cold apple.

Winter

Winter falls.
Cold surrounds
and tightens
her icy fingers
on our souls.

Chilling raindrops
are lost in the
inky darkness
which
slowly seeps
under the windows and doors
that we have determinedly
shut against it
and we are powerless to
stop the advance.

We put the kettle to boil,
wrap ourselves in blankets,
curl up with a book
and wait.

The Adolescent Time

September is the adolescent time.

Hot one day, and cold the next, 

it slams the door of summer
on our eager faces
before coming back
and inviting us
to swim.

crying in alarm

at mother's abrupt parting

a baby bird sings

bare tree
in summer growing
marshmallow sticks

At the Grotto

Orange butterfly
alights on purple flower--
prays with Bernadette.

The Poetry of Beauty

All around us is
the poetry
of beauty.

The age-old impassioned yearning
of humanity
for the timeless, unsurpassed achievement
of created exquisiteness,

in sound
or in art,

in poetry
or in form,

unfolds for us
that which is beyond ourselves.

As we hunger for this beauty--
this order--
spending hours with the paint brush
or the pen,

with the clay
or the computer,

we toss aside our weak attempts
and start again.

We search each stranger's face
for the perfect beauty
that we know exists

for even our imperfect minds
have conceived it.

Beauty will save the world.
~Theodore Dostoyevsky

The waves
of olive green
lap weakly
on the muddy shore
and never succeed
in covering up
the dead fish.

Bay

The waves
of olive green
lap softly
on the muddy shore.

The pungent smell
of salty, rotting fish,
given as an offering
to the gods of modernity,
surrounds the vacationers .

Nature has been
relegated to the outskirts--
down the street,
around the corner,
and to the left,
to be seen only
when you steal
a few minutes
alone.

Pompeii

And the people
went on
marrying and being given in marriage
right up to the day
when the liquid fire
covered their lives
and froze them,
together
in a moment
of eternal stagnation.

Walking in the rain
the street light focusing on
the one illuminated section
of the shiny blacktop,
pancake shaped under the conical spotlight,
highlighting the frantic drops
that fall within
its cone-shaped boundary,
I contemplate the few
among the many,
each the same,
yet different,
set apart
merely by an accident
of their birth.

Season's End

There is a sense of mourning in Autumn.
The last fiery color before the cold and gray
when Autumn reaches out to those around her,
desperate to connect
before the veil comes down--
before everything changes
and she is
alone.

(Thanks to Pandora of "Poetry & Creative Expressions" for the inspiration.)

The tiny beaks
clicking
just above audibility,
sound like tiny crickets
who've lost their voices.

Thriving above
man and machine,
above the animals
and away from the weather,
the birds are fed,
nurtured by attentive parents--
models of endurance and stability,
they put me to shame.