Act Two

Now I have found two of you
Or at least you have shown yourselves…
Like in the second act of a play or pageant
Acted out in the hot days of summer.
And the second act is full of dialog:
A discussion back and forth
A call and response chorus
Of an operetta,
For I hear the music
But do not speak the language.
But by the staging and the costuming I can infer
That perhaps you are parent and child
In the throes of avian adolescents
Working out the final solution whereby wings
Flap and you separate
Both greater for it?
Or maybe you are siblings and squabbling
Over turf or food or the keys to the coming kingdom?
Pleasantly distracted by the drama,
I am keeping my ears keen and my eyes
To the sky.

Calls and Tokens

It is tomato season.
Vines are pendulous with fruit
Colored like the margin of a rosy sunrise
Crowning above a forest canopy.
It is an expectant time.
Overhead you continue to call out.
-It has been several weeks now-
You give out a two note crescendo
A half-step up
Sounding like it is issued from a rusty slide-whistle,
A squeaky garden gate,
Not songful
Just barely an exhale.
Who do you seek?
And what do you want?
You are young perhaps
Needing to let go, but fledged forlorn,
Willfully abandoned and sent on your way…
You glide across a sky light
And then perch, showing yourself.
I raise my hands full of tomatoes
And offer them in a fruitless gesture:
I am with you
But I cannot come to your aid.

Taking Chances

I am the frog
Sitting upon a lily pad
Floating on a pond
Of expectation
And anticipation.
I do not know how deep it is
Or what may lie within its waters.
Undaunted
I bask in the green glory
Of the mid-summer sun
And bathe in the wild water
From which I was sprung.
I am the frog
And I must take my chances.

July 29

Late July’s warm rain

Makes the barefoot walk to the mailbox

Feel like swimming in the Caribbean.

Clover blossoms stick secretly between the toes

Lungs inhale a lusty moist zephyr

Hair hangs in seaweed locks.

A catbird follows overhead

Lofting with some labor

From branch to branch

She sings and sings

Hoping I will catch the tune and join in

The sly sylvan chorus.

Bird-hop

Best thing I ever did
Was to sink eight cedar posts into
The soil upright,
Stubbed off at five feet.
A garden fence.
Catbirds and Wrens bird-hop the tops
Back and forth.
Peering towards the potatoes
They issue a silky call
Then drop down.

My Celestial Bearings

We are reaching towards the summer sun

Its magical radiant magnetism draws us up

Zinnias screw ‘round in their party hats

Sunflowers crane and track

Potatoes stand on tiptoes supping

Snakes stretch prostrate on heated rocks

While turtles haul out in their Coney Island way.

I turn my cheeks

Both fore and aft

And tropistically adjust my celestial bearings

As if those beams might just charge and spark

My drawn down batteries.

Ah to be green photosynthetically keen

A sip of water and breath of air

And bask and bask the sun so fair

The whole planet is cocked and tipped on end

We wobble round, a top off-centered

This day, this June, the light, I swoon

We lean and stretch

Lusting and lapping each photon down

And after, glow both green and brown,

A blissful prayer we make to Ra and Rey

  Sustain us

    Maintain us

      Through night ‘til day.