in my haste

in my haste I
cut
the wrong stem, and
the small tight buds
fell,
all hope gone

The Ellipse

You say that,
but...

and the problem lies in the
ellipsis

the undefined unstated
conditions that will later
appear,
tacked on like Martin Luther's
theses

requirements
or 
boundaries
around an otherwise generous
offer

Life is full of ellipses,
arbitrary barbed-wire
casually strung across
dream fields,
limiting possibilities,
shrinking horizons,
changing forever
the
landscape

Vice Versa

I thought you wanted
to be with me, but you really
wanted me to be
with you.

It's not at all the same thing

Bullies of the Bird Feeder

Stern, handsome bluejays,
elegant in their disdain.
Move over!  Coming through!

Birds of a Feather

Stately cardinals
and their subtle partners gather
birds of a feather

Brilliant cardinals peck
at shiny black sunfower seed
spilt from the feeder

Bright crested cardinals
peck at shiny sunflower seed
spilt black in the snow

obviously, some work to be done, but a start - the female cardinals are so dull compared to their partners, but in their own right are lovely if not right next to the males.  Hmmmm....

Owl at Sunset

We were out ice-fishing (not fishing for ice, silly) at sunset on a slough off the Mississippi when the most brilliant purple, blue and orange bruise of a sunset lasted at least twenty minutes - it was mesmerizing.  At the very end, when dusk descended, a hoot owl came out of the woods and settled in an elm at the end of the point where the river meets the slough.

an owl hoots lonely
in the savage blue sunset
over the frozen river

bird haiku

starting a new project - my deck is the stage for bird-watching - so, in honor of my brightly-feathered friends...they are beautiful beggars and I cannot resist luring them into my view.  If I were more of a photographer, I'd get better pictures, but alas! that talent is my son's - check out his page at http://0010010.blogspot.com/




Mendicants.  Begging
exuberantly, brilliant
bold vagabonds

Ode to the Black-Capped Chickadee

Perhaps the most persistent and demanding at the bird feeder, friendly and unafraid - they scold me when I don't get the feeder filled soon enough.  I tried a haiku and my version of a tantra:

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee
First at the feeder each day
Doffing their black caps

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee, they call
crowding the feeder;
first in line every morning,
tipping their little black caps
to the rising sun.

'Dancehall of the Dead'*

Save me a waltz
in the Dancehall of the Dead.
sooner or later,
that hand will be dealt
and we'll see,
yes, we'll see
what lies ahead.

We'll all turn that corner
into the unknown.
I'll follow, you lead,
and we'll take our turn.
And we'll see,
yes, we'll see
what lies ahead.

We've had enough practice,
Lord only knows.
We glide, we dip,
I step on your toes.
And we'll see,
yes, we'll see
what for us lies ahead
in the dim-lighted Dancehall
The Dancehall of the Dead.

*Tony Hillerman book title

In God We Trust

We can only hope
we don't get what
we deserve,
don't reap what we sow,

and pray there's a merciful God
or Goddess up there
taking pity
on people who do
the best they can
and still fuck it up

Someone taking pity
on those of us who know better
and do it anyway,
who have been irreverent
but sincere.
You gotta love our imperfection,
we hope.

We pray to a lesser god,
one who might have been human
in some incarnation,
and finds us more amusing
than annoying,
and who listens to the saints who love us,
to whom we pray,
undeserving but hopeful,
trusting in the unknown
and in our better selves.

January Thaw

It's one of those days
when 30 degrees Farenheit
seems warm

and the tired snow mottles
near-bare fields needing
a new blanket.

The birds are not so ravenous
at the feeder
and the dogs track mud
into the shop.

We sail into the morning,
heavy boots left behind,
coats flapping in the wind;
we are hatless
a spring in our step.

We believe, for the moment,
for the day,
that maybe this winter won't
be so bad,
after all.

'In the Light of the Angel Choir'

I have been reading Hildegard de Bingen, a 12th century mystic - she was fraught with guilt and self-recrimination, traits that do not tend to inspire me, but humility runs not so deep in our age.

There is no reasoning, no pondering we can achieve over the tragedy of the Newtown children; I cannot get my head around it at all.  I cannot absorb or think it, such a thing.  I said my novena, I keep them and their families in my prayers, but the rote prayers I learned in Catechism have not brought me succor.

The following was inspired by the quote above.  It consists of 26 words, in honor of the number of children and their teachers.



                           'In the Light of the Angel Choir'*

               The angels weep to receive you, beloved innocents.

               May Your perpetual light shine upon them, O Lord,
               and blessings from our deepest heart.

               Rest in peace.



*from a poem of the same title by HDB

Just around the corner...

from the Botswana detective ladies, who are full of charming aphorisms, this take on the afterlife:

she was not certain of what constituted such an afterlife, where the late people went, what they did, whether they could hear us, or that was just a conceit on our part, but she thought they 'went around some corner we have yet to turn'

I'm liking that, it's vague enough to encompass any number of theories and beliefs.  As we age, some of us become more sure of our beliefs, some more skeptical, many times depending upon how much loss we have suffered, and the source of that loss.  One of my dear aunts, upon my father's death, told me she really wasn't so sure about the afterlife.  I was shocked.  My own skepticism was one thing; my religious aunt, who had sung in her church choir for over fifty years, had begun to wonder herself.  I was seeking her certainty that my Dad was out there somewhere playing cards and golfing.  She made this remark as we went into the church for the funeral Mass.  There's nothing like a requiem mass to reassure you that someone is still peddling Heaven.

So at Christmas, and Epiphany, we look for the light.  Our solstice remains changeless:  the light comes, the days lengthen, and we look to Spring.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

From Alexander McCall Smith's series about Botswana ladies who detect:

'...it is important that there should be places where not a great deal happens because such places remind us that life is not entirely and exclusively made up of exciting or significant events.  Every life needs spells of calm, every life needs expanses of time when noting much occurs, when one may sit for several hours in the same place and gaze upon static things, upon some waxen-leafed desert plant, perhaps, or a patch of dry grass.  Or a group of cattle standing under a tree for the shade, the slow flicking movement of their tails the only indication that the are animate beasts, not rocks; or a sky across which no clouds, or perhaps only the merest wisp of white, move.'

Sunday Afternoon

the turkeys now come
in late afternoon,
a broad phalanx of
big black birds
on the march across
the cornfield

they march eastward, lined up
north and south;
a turkey scout out in front,
leading the way to a bend
in the Plum River
where they roost