The Maples of Broad Street

The maples of Broad Street
have ceased to be tame,
The maples of Broad Street
are shaking their manes

Cacophony

It must have been

an evening in early August

when ‘cacophony’ was coined.

What other moment

could have minted

such an awesome articulation:

the world’s most perfect word?

Chicory

Ode to the summer roadside’s unassuming garland

Tomato Plants in Late June

Tomato plants in late June

don’t smell like anything

except

tomato plants in late June.

Singular unto themselves

their redolence subsists…

The First Sunday Evening in June

The first Sunday evening in June

is like that famous score by John Cage

titled 4’33”…

Meadowbreeze Lane

A swarm of swallows trims the grass One dive bomb at a time, And the bumblebee checks all the flowers To find a pair that rhyme. Every wingéd beast and insect Gaily, madly, gads about, But the red-winged blackbird bobs along Like his shrew has turned him out. May 1, 2020

The Greens of May

It’s the morning after the gala, and even the Cherry admits she overdid it this year. The Lilac’s purple litter has fallen and faded, and the King’s crown lies in state. The canopy’s canvas is bourgeoning with green— twenty different shades of verdancy gleam in fourteen splendored hours of sunlight. The blushing boughs of April

I Have An Antique Rose

I have an antique rose; She waits patiently for me. When I draw nigh with pruning shears, She utters not a plea. Her thorny branches twine in knots, They tangle by degrees. Yet when I start to thin them out, She neither fights nor flees. She stands in proud defiance, An indomitable foe; It’s ne’er

My Lilacs

I do not— when my feet at long last find Jordan’s verdant banks, in those fleetly fading moments between my final breaths, before the curtain falls upon my mortally shuffled coil— I do not want to there remember or know any reason to regret that I neglected or did not otherwise seize even a single

Dump Trip Saturday

Dump Trip Saturday is sacred among Saturdays. It stands alone unto itself, unique and holy. Its rites and rituals are solitary and serene; their execution is communal (and clamorous!). . Dump Trip Saturday is always borne from Saturdays past: A pile of scraps after a completed project, appliances failed beyond repair, a neglected playhouse, a