A Brief Lesson

A Brief Lesson

My house was such
That I could stand at the sink
Wash a cup clean
And enjoy the view
Out the window,
To the bird feeders
And across the yard,
To the frosted garden and the forest beyond.

The birds and I had an arrangement:
I would feed them
And they would show themselves,
Feather and bill
So I could get a closer look
From the comfort of my kitchen vantage.
It was a unilateral accord:
I, the master of my domain
That of seed and suet
They, driven by the sirens call of feed
That offered sustenance and survival.

Winter, not caring, took as well as it gave.

Chickadees were cheer for me
As winter took from me as well
And I could find some comfort
In their incessant energy and lust for life.

The woodpeckers
Stiff tail-feathered
And hammer headed
Feed their furnaces with globs
Of suet
A suitable substitute for
Beetle grubs and dormant moths.

And the mourning doves
Shuffled and strutted across the ground
Now and then puffing their rosy breasts
A prelude to the more formal dance
They held each springtime here.

Swift of wing
But slow of foot,
They showed themselves to the hawk
Who had perched along the tree line.
Waiting unseen
Driven by the itch of instinct
It swooped down
Talons aimed deadly at the dove
Who had turned to harvest a seed,
The last it would ever taste.

There was a small thump and a shower of feathers, then
With powerful pumps of its muscular wings
The hawk lifted its prize
To dine al fresco
On some nearby perch in privacy.

By the time I had dropped my cup
This moment had passed,
Perhaps in a heartbeat
Or two.
There was nothing to be done,
Except for the heavy lifting,
Nothing to consider
But the moment
Between dove and hawk
And carry it with me
Throughout my days.

-P. Sanderson

How Was Your Day?

How Was Your Day?

You’ve got to keep an eye on the morning
Or it will slip away.
The robins know this
Their mamas taught them about the early bird…
You might know that when you get up to get
Another cup of coffee
That the grass will have grown another inch
There’s no stopping this cavalcade
So, ignore it at your peril. 

And while you’re at it
Keep a close watch on the afternoon
‘cause just a blink and it's gone.
Gone gone.
String them together
And you’ll miss the entire week.

Then you’ll need a note for your teacher

Just to get back in the game.

There is only so much sunshine to go around

And moments to take off your shoes

And reconnect with your toes,
Even if you didn’t realize that you
Had become undone.

And the evening is there for you

But for the asking
Its job is to calm and collect the day…

And you could be part of that too

Imagine dropping out of “the world”

And breathing in the cool collection 

Of all that gathered and grew?

The night might be seen as the final act.

Is it the end or just the beginning?

No one knows, but it invites you to

Slip into its dark safe epilogue 

The land of letting go

And dream those dreams 

That you wish would never end.

-P. Sanderson

I “wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today…”
-Led Zeppelin 

This Day

This Day

I have seen this day before
And foolishly have walked on by
Too full of me
My meager ways
Obscured from sight by
Molehills risen as mountains,
Such self-creations
These clouds brewed within,
While missing the mare’s tails that scud above
As they gloriously steamship by.

I stumbled-on too frequently,
  eyes down
  half closed
  half blind.

This day starts like any other
In its thousand different ways
Though this one has made a modest point
To call unassuming attention to itself.

Ands so as if to say,

She spoke to me:
You found the woes of winter such
That I have brought in sweet bouquet
And sumptuous songs of sparrow-speak
These dewy jewels on verdant grass
And zephyrs bearing blossom showers
Redolent reminders of such beauty here
Yours but for a bended knee
And a softly listening ear…

These whispers roared and beckoned so
Compelling and seducing me

That I have left the world behind

The one that weights the spirit down
And found my way

A barefoot boy
To wander in the garden green
And there to grow my very soul.

-P, Sanderson

Small and Large

the beginnings and endings

are perfectly clear

though the middle lies clouded 

horizon-less

and although a truth

may be found there

may be known by you

may be known by me

these are often small truths 

such low hanging fruit

debatable and dependent on small consequences

petty causes
petulant to the moment
and the ways of the heart’s wilder winds.

larger truths
which lay dormant but accessible
perhaps within my reach and yours,
will materialize and manifest
to those of us who willingly hold our hearts open
and our empty hands extended
in the clear quiet moments of soft breathing.

Lilacs and Stones

Two writers of note
Are buried
At Poet’s Corner,
Their graves within chatting distance.
And if they could but emerge
From their rest
And smell the lilac nearby
In full fragrance
Gaudy and grand in its regalia
The writers might be pleased to note
That those blossoms are
Drawing from them
Some molecular muse,
A passage from poet to plant that
Only mid-May can produce.

I stop to photograph each maker’s stone
Which are beautiful but unremarkable
Found in this cemetery
That seemingly pays lavish tribute to
Secular grandness,
Monuments that call out to the universe
For a life beyond life,
Recovering and resurrecting
The one that stopped at the stone.

The camera captures my immortal moment
With them this mid-May day.
And so, rest in peace my
Wordsmith friends,
As the lilacs
Surely will bloom again.

Ernie, Vacuuming the Pool

At this late date
Some twenty-five years forward
From his death,
A cancer,
That maybe today he could have survived,
I am thinking of my father
And how after a day’s work
Selling concrete
Or hanging a door for some neighbor,
He would find his way after dinner
To the swimming pool
Which he and mom built
In their struggle to work their way
Into the great American middle class.

And as a summer’s heat dissipated
Into the golden hours of the evening
He would vacuum the pool
Carefully cleaning the bottom of
Leaves, grass clippings and such,
The detritus of privilege.

I was a teenager then
And although it was one of my chores
I expressed no interest in cleaning the pool;
The duty seemed tedious.
My father would remind me to vacuum
But he never asked twice.
Sometimes I would feel a pang of guilt
As I left for the evening with friends,
Seeing him push the pole
Slowly back and forth.

It was only just the other day
These twenty-five years out
That it came to me
In a daydream randomly accessed,
That he in fact might have enjoyed the task;
The solitude
Sounding the depths
Lost for a few moments
In this singular activity.

If I had been the man I am today
Back then
I might have joined him
To share a moment
Or at least give him a nod of acknowledgement
From across the backyard.

Dreams

And then all at once

It struck me,

As if it had been fermenting

In some psycho-yeasty still,

Maniacal microbes of the mind

It came rushing to the forefront,

A bad dream tamped down

But not stomped out

(Only you can prevent wild-thinking!)

These little devils,

Dreams that whirl dervishly

Choose to plague me occasionally.

The shaman claims that they are there

To help make meaning:

Process and sort symbolically,

Like a recycling center.

(Maybe a recycling center

Struck by a hurricane.)

Is life such a layer cake,

And is this the creamy nugget filling?

But why so metaphorical,

So disconcerting?

You got my attention

Can’t we just deal with it,

Move on,

And let me loose

All at once?

Fix It

Trying not to dissolve
Is not the solution,
Or is it?

I am stymied
By the problems in the world
As they tend to take up
Residency,
Disrupting
And corrupting
The truce of peronal peace
 I have fought for
(As if one can fight for peace.)
It is so easy to let
Those demons dance:
They are happy
To twist and turn,
Some sort of maniacal macarena.
(Noisy neighbors,
 shut the fuck up!)

And then to be bombarded
By the bombastic news,
(Somewhere out there
Everywhere out there)
Of hatred and cruelty
Fear and famine…
(“It’s not my problem”
Is my problem)
My mind says, “fix it!”
Just let go of your shit
(my shit, your shit, our shit)
And fix it.
Let go indeed.

And while fix it
Means fix you,
Fix me,
(aka see the truth, known the truth,
The very music we dirty dance to)
I spend my days
Head under the sheets
Or running off to some pretty place
Trying to save my very soul.

Spring's Bosom

It is said
That after the storm one blossoms,
Although the only guarantee
Is there is no guarantee.

Personally speaking
Storms leave big messes,
Stunned survivors,
Looking forward to starting
From square one, again.  Sigh…

Winter can side-step any budding spring.
Any puddle-product mosquito worth her wings
Can confirm.
Blink and you’ll miss it.
…
There, you missed it.

All that’s left
Is her red hot itchy calling card.

Snow mounds
Blizzard born,
Slide into the gutter
With little pomp
Given this circumstance,
No fragrance
No flower,
Yielding only a crop of wet shoes
And anguish.

So, no corsage to the formal,
Riders on the storm.
And who said we must embellish
Spring’s bosom anyway?

After the tempest
One might consider looking for
A steady stem
Lowly but hopeful.

Twigs speak more hopefully
Of the future.