Like Annie Dillard
I’ve learned to be
still enough so even
birds ignore me, they
settle so close oblivious
to my presence, the more
of this the better I think
– the great divide gone just like that.
Though
there certainly is a food chain.
© Chagall 2016
As I go
so goeth
a quick step
alongside
yet again
watch me teeter
I catch stride
ambulate cleanly
now and then
sometimes for a pretty long time
oops!
banana peel
yep – my head popped
cement apparently
jarred me looser
I float beside me
in rarefied ether
levitate clearly
now and then
© Chagall 2016
They’re pretty – perfect really, she says.
Buy the dead flowers.
But I’m more tempted
by the sentient ones
despite their powdery mildew.
© Chagall 2016
The night is crisp, autumnal.
Bourbon sweeter.
My son and his petite amie
at a friend’s cabin while they’re away.
With them, a bag of sweet potatoes
I grew and cured, for roasting
over the wood fire they’ll make.
Life is good.
Peepers sing earlier
than usual tonight. Harmonics from breezes
to trees to shape the glass arc of our ears
to blow gently in them.
I am yellow aged orange inflamed
dared to go red before withering.
I pray to the last gold ray of sun
there in the tall eastern trees
that refuses to say die to another day.
© Chagall 2016
There at the end of
the garden are all of
the seasons’ lessons
to be learned
So let’s Us harvest
– for unless we harvest …
© Chagall 2016
Sweet potato by Melissa drying
together in one heap.
I make a one-cup dough everyday,
roll it or fill it.
We’ve seawater still on our fingertips,
a crust of hot crystal salt.
I’m different – you said,
through the open window – I’m the one looking up.
You were late. I watched you gather lilac and lace
by the unlatched gate.
Your breathing stills matter about the fire,
all being is cured aromatic.
And so able to last
forever.
© Chagall 2016
Advance humbly;
we all were once
squiggly beings.
© Chagall 2016
The sounds of night
linger and stray
into morning
This is not
real light
I’m aware
Too faded
perhaps
too bright
Too soon
the day
breaks
The day
brakes
Time slows
I enumerate
each passing
thing
One by
one
I am lost
in implicate order
Purely
of my own design
© Chagall 2016
Consider that
there is
no God
All birds sing
of their own
volition
Albeit
a sadder tune
There is
no echo
nor refrain
No joyous
hallelujah
A lonely lilt
on empty branch
© Chagall 2016
Low-intensity
red stars
around us
everywhere
dim and unseen
The brightest
are fewer
but we see them
no matter how
far away
Yes they’re the first
to burn then fade
flickers at the rim
of time
Since Creation
there’s not
a smaller M-type star
that’s yet died
Chagall 2016
Alphabet City 