The First Sunday Evening in June

The first Sunday evening in June is like that famous score by John Cage titled 4’33”. He had the idea to write a piece of music that instructed every musician to simply and simultaneously rest: to not play any note or sound for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. It was an experimental, unprecedented undertaking, and

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

To the Forgotten Lady

Every year,
at about this time…
…it happens that
I beg forgiveness of a tree

Willings

I. A man stores away his heavy winter gear in the second week of March. “I’ve no need of these ‘til November at least. Spring is here at last.” . He locks away down linings and microfleece, with reasons to believe: a skunk was in the trash last night and he spied a robin on

Another Man’s List

Another man’s list: impressed by wet boots into the pavement of a parking deck on a Tuesday. The author, by now, unseen and unknown, shuffled off the coil. His orders since discarded in the marching– a fleeting, transient monument to his duty. . The words are simple, cryptic, and pragmatic. They describe a morning errand,

Out In the Harbor

There, out in the harbor, with her back to the madding, stands the old noble Lady with her torch and her crown. Just the sight of her back, and her book, and her beacon still thrills me the most on my way into town. . She stands on her island, stands for Hope and for