Sorting

I have glasses I sometimes wear
But I take them off at night.
No need.
In my dream-sleep world
Everything seems crystal clear, 1080p.
Apart from the dreaded anxiety dreams
It is a peaceful place,
A preferred place,
And free of the dreaded real-world anxieties:
No maniacal cartoon character presidents
Or fires of the insanities.
Safe as safe can be…

Somewhere last night in the background
I could hear the rain.
Warm in bed it seduced me to choose
A bit more early morning sleep.
Should I get up in the cold house
and see what the waking world has to offer?
“No,” the water warns
Rocking me rhythmically
Drumming down the drainpipe
It helps me choose,
A fluvial sorting of sorts,
And I have no will to resist.

A page or two into my next dream
I hear:
Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.
Someone at my chamber door?
So unlikely.
I will not peek.
Woodpecker drilling into the shingles?
For sure.
And they require no entrance into my world,
Save for some seed and suet.
We have long ago made our pleasant peace
Although I’d prefer
Not to have them
As my alarm clock.

November Rain

The rain is slightly confusing.
An outlier in November,
Heavy and nearly nonsensical,
It is dark and warm
As it leaches the leaves off the birches.
Soon the oak leaves will fall as well
Though the beeches still resist
And will chatter late into the winter,
Loitering long enough to
Sing welcome to the spring.

Out my window I notice
That this persistent shower
Is washing the bird droppings off my car’s windshield
Oh joy!

Plopped there by chickadees and titmice

Who have gathered sunflower seeds at the nearby feeder
Grinds from their gizzards.
I feed them as they bring me happiness
-The nature of joy found in such common beauty-
And so at the moment
I gather in
And am buoyed by two joys.

Prelude to Spring

A passing shower brings
A prelude to spring.
It dimples and pocks the lake
Creating self-healing divots
Craters and canyons
Painting and sculpting and painting again
The grey liquid canvas.
Watch closely or you might miss it as
The eye jitterbugs from near shore to far
Wanting to register
Each drop as it strikes
A visual cacophony of
Low rollers circling and radiating
Brothers and sisters
Born from above
No two seem  alike
(Though there is
A strong family resemblance).

A sudden burst bring more and more
Radiating circumferences
Shoulder by shoulder
Crossing and blending these
Fluid Venn diagrams,
Now being studied by mallard mathematicians
Paddling across the pond
Wondering if dinner is included with this show?

 Soon, a drier wind sweeps
The grey palette clean
Shape-shifting the water,
With a pause and a stillness,
An ephemeral epilogue
Waiting for the rain to return
Once again.

Listening to the Rain

There is nothing I can do today
But listen to the rain
No need to force the issue much
So I will take what comes my way
And as it washes through my mind
It conjures up a dream
An ember from the night before
And of different day
Of someone who I made appear
Or maybe she was real?
I do recall and fondly so
That she was soft
And warm
And so
Playfully we fit and joined
Like puppies in a velvet pile
And ego-less we found our way
With nothing left except a smile.

 

Into the Misty Vapor

Staring across the pasture,
I wonder at the rain sweeping up the mountain
And the fog laminating the forest in the distance,
Bending the view
So that the trees become bleary specters,
So that their green and gray spirits might come out to play and display,
A show that is free for the seeing, from this vantage.
 

A winding path leads me out,
Familiar to my step and eye
And yet new, wildly wet and blown
On this day of apparitions.
 
And then I see it, as it sees me,
In a frozen moment,
Both of us somewhat disbelieving,
Each struggling to make sense of this newly broken reality.
 
It is hunkered down low on the ground
A puddle of white and barred brown,
Wings braced, leaning into the driving gusts.
And then too suddenly it takes flight,
And so with it my eyes and heart,
Lifted to a new place
That I will willfully follow long after
The owl has disappeared over the tree line
And into the misty vapor.

May Rain

It has rained over the past day
Gentle then hard then gentle
And in joyous gratitude
The grass and orchids and ferns
Have drunk in these delirious draughts
While riding on the waves
From a nearby star
High over head
Mid-May.
Life leaps in this green orgy
Embracing itself
Unembarrassed.
It’s what it does.
 
The wet yellow dog
Stops to share a pet
Showing scars about her eye
Lessons she has likely forgotten
Being of the big-hearted short-memoried bred
Long on grace and beauty and play
But not so much on dog-social intelligence
Someday she will be bitten again
As we cheer her spirit and
Pity it too.
 
These things we share
On this day of spats and dogs.

 

 

 

H2Oh

 

~Raucous and intense noise

Drumming on my roof this early morning

~Wetting and touching every recess

A trickle is a flood to someone

~Some heavenly ovations will engender randomness

Especially if you have left your umbrella behind

~Reality, an inspired nuance.