Summer Ritual

They were free for the picking –
Glistening orbs of deepest black
Hanging full-ripe from
Briars intertwined with wild grape and honeysuckle,
And they called to me that Sunday
When July hung like a soggy towel
Over a steaming sink of dishes.

I took my bucket to the jagged boundary
Between yard and wilderness
And reached into the knotted mass of vine and leaf
Time and time again,
Bending, pulling, muttering,
Catching my purple-stained fingers
On thorns relentless as angry jaybirds.

The June bugs laughed, and the stinkbugs,
And the granddaddy long legs too as I straightened
My own stiff joints at last, and, pulling
my sodden shirt
From around my waist,
Sped away to the air-conditioned kitchen,
Booty in hand,
To continue my summer ritual;
And later, in the middle of a
divinely rounded spoonful of
sweet, seedy cobbler and cream,
I had the last laugh.

Soft to the Touch

The heavy clouds that
brought early morning rain,
floating westward have left a
finger-sized crevice low in the eastern sky
through which an insistent sun peeps,
spilling warmth like honey over mountains’
misted tapestry of color and texture
that dazzle me as I awake from dreaming.

If I could run my hands over
these mountains’ ancient slopes,
I fancy the thick, deep folds
would feel like a gray nubby sweater,
shot through with threads
of palest heathered blue,
soft to the touch and achingly familiar
in the intensity of their comfort.

Seeking solitude

The cemetery,
Verdant island by city surrounded,
Through stone gate’s silent sentry
We entered, sheepish, brushing aside
Stooping trees, twisted
Branches weeping petals
Of dogwood, as in passing
We stirred the honeyed warmth
Spanning winter’s grasp
And summer’s kiss.

Our companions, by faded letters
Worn smooth on pitted stones
Identified, lives sealed forever
By fate’s permanent decree
Spoke volumes as we wandered
Hushed, tentative,
Through buttercups and scent
Of life strong and deep as spring earth,
Finding in imposed silence a clamoring fugue
Of thoughts unspoken.

First Snow

Blackbirds sitting on a snowy branch,
Gazing at the sky--
Black and white
White and black,
So vivid side by side

Bushes tangled in a snowy mass,
Sagging to the ground--
In and out
Out and in,
Brown sparrows flit around.

Gray cat checking out the fluffy stuff
Early in the day--
Up and down
Down and up,
The birds all fly away.