Saturday, March 21, 2020

Spider Web


One web spun,

ceaseless and lucid as the rising sun
simple as morning worms
invisible as today’s breeze
waiting, waiting to catch me in a sticky pause
A web sturdy as the ant’s back,
the one who carries away my frosted flake
A web shimmering only in the right light
            at just the right angle
            or right time of day, of year, of life

This web, intricate and complicated
beyond my capacity to design,
brushed away as an irritant
            an annoyance
            or was that fear?

I break this web’s anchor from fence post and tree limb
and yet it is spun again through the night, every night,
and yet the impenetrable pattern
that ambiguous weaving
an obscure path
so unclear to me, until today,
when a particular ray of the sun, a hint of first light,
cuts through this one web
so simply, so rightly
into my dawn.


Water way



Follow
the riverbed
wash clean dust and debris
purified triviality
cleanse me

Arrive
in peace
through streams of green
and humming bees
Mitigated silence
so much easier here
between pine trees and idleness
amid effortless lakeside purl

to hear
your Beloved
il bel far niente
light riffles round us shadows fall
day rests with cricket calls
lullaby psalms
be still

Friday, March 20, 2020

Hummingbird and Columbine




Awake Now

from a gloomy hibernation,
I notice columbine in bloom
and last year’s barren apple tree
bearing spurs. Anna’s hummingbird
flits merely feet away from me ~
her name is Joy.

She was, all winter, an always
presence of possibility,
but my eyes were closed, my mind shut
to her iridescent green crown,
ruby-throated chirping contrast
to my gray song.

Today, following a season
of black, I wear scarlet again,
the red that attracts her to me,
beating vehemently between
honeysuckle and apple trees.
The hummingbird

in crimson pursuit, reminds me
of my power to fly backward
or forward, or to just flutter
my wings in place, pollinating
and consuming all the honey
nectar of now.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Trillium












Trillium


Trinity of forest floors, remind me
as I cling in this spring of uncertainty,
with desire to claim, possess as mine,
heightened by daily news and little sign
of peace.  I seek your lesson, wood lily ~

Rife and wild, you are ever meant to be
white wake robin, shaded, yes. Sheltered, but free
from harsh winds and warring lives entwined
Trinity of forest floors, remind me

that if I pluck violet-veined petals, nestled in ivy,
to vase as mine, for seven years I will not see
your flower, in patches of promise, divine
golden centers of hope in precarious times.
Behold, but not hold any blossom too tightly.
Trinity of forest floors, remind me.


A note: I first posted this in 2006, but wrote it 2003 when we were entering a war. Seventeen years later, as we are quarantined from Covid-19, I felt the need to repost.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

After the Storm


After the Storm

I leave the polished black waters
of resentment and greed
to walk this muddy path
strewn with fallen greens
and pink veined trillium
folded in on themselves
from the weight of a drenching rain
I walk this path again
past abandoned wildflower bouquets
to the circle of cedar
and my leaning tree
the mourning dove cries
her hollow song
simply
hear me
please
please
please
please