This morning a butterfly sleeps
on the screen of my porch with antennae
lightly cupping the mesh
I stare deep into her round compound eye
and blow gently along her abdomen
She stirs, lifts off in flight then vanishes
Chagall 2017
hummingbird teasing nectar
zips to the lowest pine-bough
and back, can’t keep a secret
there’s two now, one on the perch
the other flapping, fearful to alight
emitting signals that attract
even butterflies
hummingbird versus a cicada-killer wasp
mid-flight, left it bent at the ankles
exponentially faster, oh how it giggled
poof! gone in a puff, already in the canopy
a quick celebration, that nectar rush
hummingbird back, but first a diversion
for those who might be watching too closely
atop the green post in the garden where the asparagus ferns have lengthened,
one mississippi, two missi…
back to the feeder
blessed sugar water
I’m a Blackhawk baby, I’m a whirlybird,
I’m a space invader, I am elevator Wonka
next-stop, the Pines
© Chagall ∞
To the ant who questioned my Being while circling my foot in play:
I’m a Möbius strip, an Escher curve, a vast topologic ocean
© Chagall ∞
My drafts hold nothing of interest, some nonsense I scribbled
in a vain attempt to infer Sara from the existence of stars,
some ambiguous mumbo (tiny, not jumbo) plus
a line about life in the canopy over
fields at the apex of gloaming.
Nothing of value to work with here
so I turn to birdsong to quell
my ache for expression.
© Chagall ∞
Lost high atop clouds
Below rich colored soils
Rock, sand, silt, and clay
Angular, blocky
Mother’s rich in organics
Endless horizons
Infiltrate the ground
Seep red from leaching iron
More dense than porous
Root to me firmly
Here in the space of no air
Within the solid
© Chagall ∞
How subtle are these symbols, to clinch or to clench,
both embrace, one the certainty of winning, the other
holds tight to imminent loss, to quench, bring cooling
liquid, healing balm, through tight canals to affliction,
immersion in ice, or steam, infinite horizons of water,
too quiet, to hush someone lovingly with finger upon lips
shushing air.
© Chagall ∞
Rain.
My neighbor is playing classic rock, lost in the din
Of rain.
Cardinal calls pierce the sheet of sound, lovingly embrace
The rain.
All of life cascades in a downpour around me, I am lost as preordained
In the rain.
Saturation. Virginal daisies or is that camomile?
I am the rain.
I am every scent of lavender exposed in mist on warm nights
After the rain.
The softest drop of dew about to flee from thirsty petals
Before the rain.
Moonlight, peeking out from dying clouds,
Dreams of rain.
I lie beside you, fall through your gravity, you ask What’s it like inside?
I whisper Rain.
© Chagall ∞
To the birds outside my window today
I am the object behind the screen
Chagall ∞
Yesterday morning I took down an old dead ash tree
that had presided over the middle of the backyard
for fifty years or so. In the evening, with a tea
in hand, I sat there and eyed the space where the
tree had only just stood, and noticed a bird who kept flying
to and from the stump, alit in sawdust, back to perch
on a carved fence-head nearby. After a while I understood
the bird’s plight of my making. We both nestled
there throughout the night, under thinly-aired twilit skies
awash in constellations, anxious for the birth of new trees.
© Chagall ∞
I’ve found that if you want a certain type of ground cover to flourish
you needn’t wholly eradicate its competition but just enough to give an edge.
© Chagall ∞
