ONCE
THERE WAS A MILKY WAY
by
Lula Dovi 2010
From the starscape
ancient eyes imprinted sea-paths and Earth-paths.
celestial messages from
Milky Way’s millions of luminaries—
translations into stone-marked circles and graveled medicine-wheels.
Sky-time.
Distant stars bright enough to tell star-time and moon-time
before the sun arose.
How bright the stars were
before we lit our nightscape
and blotted out so many star-eyes,
before we yielded to the rapture of neon.
We are alit so wholly that
shadows flee from urbanscape,
allowing only blazoned sun, moon or glimmer of stars
CYBERIA
By Lula Dovi 2010
Orbits studded with satellites
circling techno-bits
overwhelming our systems.
Winken, Blinken and Nod never knew
or fished for such stellar orbiters.
We harvest our celestial ocean.
We find our geopositions.
We gather millions of bits and pieces
netted for our Earth.
SPRING
FALLOUT
Lula
Dovi
1960’s Sometime
Purple tears lie on azalea blooms,
the dogwood weeps a white lament.
The dew’s a dirge, a scourge on all the earth.
Spring rains a plague, irradiated contempt.
The meadow mourns its roots of evil
cursed with poisonous grass blades
thrust at mankind’s jugular.
Mushroom clouds bear deadly spores for earth-spawn,
exacting rites of non-fertility—
stillborn genes and chromosomes
offered up to lunacy.
WRAPPED
IN
PLASTIC
by
Lula Dovi
Bicycle rider burdened with bags
hanging in front, hanging on sides,
bags of burdens, parts of his life?
His heaviness weighs on me,
the burdens are mine—
our lives touch quickly
in my turn lane and his turn lane—
a moment’s regard
a turn of thought
and what is bagged in plastic passes on.
STARING
DOWN THE BASILISK
By
Lula Dovi 2009
I will stare down that mythical monster—
the basilisk of elderhood.
With his ossifying glance
he comes at me sideways,
tries to nick my composure
unsettle my wits and
mess with my digits.
But he belongs not here but there
in the ancient books
or a moldy trunk
filled with withered papers
stamped with falsehoods.
I will bury that chimera
with his awful gaze
beneath the crushing cairn of time.
WALK
ON
DOE
RIDGE
By
Lula Dovi, July 2009
It was not a gallop going up,
but quicker, surer footsteps
some years ago made the ridge
slope with easier access.
Today the climb was slower
and measured by more years.
July’s array was all along the road:
daylilies in yellow cascades,
bee-balm spiked with lavender and gray,
burdock topped with purple starbursts
awaiting autumn’s snagging stickers,
blackberry brambles loaded with green berries,
shy ferns hiding in the shade,
along with bright red turk’s cap
not sure if sun or shade is better.
A year has punished once-regal hemlocks
with the wooly adelgid worm
whose appetite has skeletonized the trees.
And after forty years the does and fawns
are back to claim and name their ridge.
GHOSTS
ON
DOE
RIDGE
By
Lula Dovi, August 2009
Fireflies in the meadow brush my dreams
of those departed: two friends, a husband, a lover—
not to mention scattered children and grandchildren.
On my porch at night the trees sing of times remembered—
names whispered with the raspy leaves.
In shadowed darkness a twig will snap
and break the quiet as
a walker in the woods seeks us unsought.
Stepping-stones have a ghostly imprint of who put them there.
My two dogs have come and gone but
their marks will linger on the trails.
How many full moons lit the way for goings and comings,
up the ridge, down the ridge
to Howard’s Creek and beyond
where the big falls and the lesser falls
echo among the boulders.
All of you may come again for you were always welcome.
MOCKINGBIRD
VESPERS
By
Lula Dovi May
2009
I thought he was singing to me—
those vesperal trills, too-whees and tch-tch-tches.
But he flew his evensong away
no doubt to a feathered friend.
The silence lasted until cicadas churred
crescendo-decrescendo with darkening rhythm.
My forced retreat gave way
to gnats and a buzz of mosquitoes.
MONSOON
By
Lula Dovi
May 2009
So welcome was the rain
that I opened the door
to see the curtain outside,
cascades from the eaves,
plumbago gulping all it could.
Thousands of thirsts were quenched
that evening for the
green matinee next day.
LE
BALLET DU GARBAGE (in Carrollwood)
By
Lula Dovi May
2009
Driving behind the garbage truck
I witnessed a weird ballet—
a pas de deux between man and machine.
The dancer’s pas de chat were lithe with
retrievals of barrels, sometimes
tossed and emptied with one hand.
His arabesques propelled him
back to a ledge on the metallic maw
where rapid footsteps
and arcking legs
prepared the next great leap.
The dancing slowed me, moved me
along the practice path of one balletomane.
LIFETIMES
By
Lula Dovi 2009
Then is now
a glint of now and then
a film run forward and backward
sound unwound with leit-motif
of childish cries or patter
a how it was and when
descant of lovers’ lingerings
refrains to stretch a lifetime
blazoned travels in a shimmer
dream or reel—
our codes are real and now.
Our calendars dance minuets
with then and now.
THE
CHIRPER
AGAIN
By
Lula Dovi
2009
The one-note chirper has returned
to lament I know not what.
Is it a sad song of summer’s farewell?
Or is it welcome to fall’s flags
of changing colors?
Bees so busy on my yellowing raintrees;
days drifting sooner into night;
and more moonlight-silvered hours.
A SEASONING
By Lula Dovi
Fall blew us a Florida seasoning,
sharpened the gibbous moon,
served it crisply, waferly, platter-wise
for our appraising moonlit eyes.
A dash of brown seed-pods on the rain tree
left their limbs in a hurry
and heaped together with fallen yellow flowers.
Velvet matting underfoot, fusion of cool and colors.
Why so late this year?
We wonder why September’s exit collided with October.
FLETCHER AND 22ND STREET
By Lula Dovi
I in my Subaru glide smoothly through
a street lined with misery.
At Fletcher and 22nd Street
my glance tries to avoid the scene
but guilt plucks out the unavoidable,
the on-foot shoppers, the WalMarters, daring all drivers;
the man with a cane hobbling lamely across the Stygian asphalt;
the man driving a scooter in the street;
and a young man on crutches.
“Suitcase City” spills its contents,
coming or going they pass
the VA Hospital, the University, too.
Almost hidden near garbage cans
the remnants of a once-family panhandles a meager crowd.
The sun shines on us all.
It makes a day and then more days.
ROSETTA STONE
By Lula Dovi
I am looking for a Rosetta Stone among my craggy decades piled high
with zigs and zags worked into them.
Perhaps a cave within the crags is hiding more than one stone,
crystal clues still undiscovered.
Such thought seems reasonable,
lures me into searching further,
seeking translations immutable.
There might be storied omens among the gravel of the nearby past,
blurry in a burnt sienna desert.
THERE WAS NO TV
By Lula Dovi
Once upon a time there was no TV. As children growing up in the 1920’s and 1930’s we found plenty of fun and adventure both outdoors and indoors. The heat of a Florida summer often drew us to swimming in lakes or Sulphur Springs or to card games and board games inside our homes. We listened to the radio a lot and scared ourselves with programs such as “ Inner Sanctum.” Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man? That was the introduction by a malevolent voice. At night we also tried to capture fireflies which turned out to be very nondescript-looking bugs in the daylight.
The vacant lots near our house in Suburb Beautiful gave us the most enticing opportunities to create little cities. We beat down weeds and made paths to little huts which were actually a bunch of tall weeds tied together at the top. That same weed, which we called dog fennel, had a stalk which we tried to smoke a few times. Nasty tasting stuff. In our cities we had a mayor and policemen. Those lots were a definite sign of the end of the Florida real estate boom and the beginning of the Great Depression.
Big live-oak trees were handy for a bag-swing. We could play Tarzan by swinging on the one across the street. It would not have looked suitable in our well-manicured yard with its huge but formidable tree which was difficult to climb. We also played marbles, jackstones and little cars. The miniature cars and trucks gave us endless fun. We made little houses and cities with roads that curved around the roots of the oak trees.
Roller skating (on four wheels) and bicycling took us around the neighborhood. We also built cars from wooden crates. Wheels came from broken scooters, and headlights were once peanut butter jars. At night we put candles in them to pretend we had real lights as we were allowed to drive over to the house of an aunt on Prospect Rd. Propulsion was foot power.
On many Sundays my Uncle Leslie Joughin enjoyed taking the whole family out for a drive to different places. We went to Port Tampa and saw the excursion ship, the Cuba, ready at the docks for tourists and party people to take the 90-mile trip to Cuba. That was before Fidel Castro came into power. Other places of interest were Bok Tower, Tarpon Springs sponge docks and the banana docks of Tampa.
One Sunday sight-seeing drive, which was also compelling to many other Tampans, was a drive along Bayshore Boulevard to see the latest changes at Bill Block’s house. The legend was that his work in stevedoring at the docks did not please his neighbors. Therefore, he created some very eye-catching work on his house with gaudy and mismatched exterior paint and mismatched awnings on the windows. Every few weeks the whole chaotic color scheme changed. One day a pagoda suddenly appeared in the yard along with eclectic statuary.
Although we were forbidden to do so, one time several of us rode our bicycles to Beach Park where storm sewers emptied into the bay. The stream of water looked like a little creek and cooled us deliciously. Sometimes we also took along a BB gun just in case we saw some bullfrogs. Or maybe snakes. Imaginary adventure loomed everywhere.
There was a spell of making rubber guns. The guns, for protection against bad things and other playmates, were made of wood and provided with a clothespin trigger. Rubber tire inner tubes were cut into small circles and drawn taut between the clothespin and the end of the gun. Some clever gun-makers created repeaters that could fire several rubber bands without re-loading.
Before any of us could drive cars we often rode the streetcar, or electric trolley as we might call it today, for just a few cents. We could ride to Sulphur Springs, Ballast Point, and downtown. The Tampa Theater was a great haven from the summer heat. And afterward we could go next door and get an ice cream soda. Saturdays featured cowboy movies with a trailer that would be a cliff-hanger until the following week.
As we advanced to junior and senior high school some of us played softball quite a bit in the vacant lot across the street. Then not too long afterward we forsook baseball for hours of ballroom dancing and listening to records. A favorite radio program at that time was the Lucky Strike Hit Parade. Top bands such as Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw featured tunes similar to Top 40 today.
There were many parties at homes where the rugs were picked up and the phonograph set us dancing the fox-trot, the waltz, the jitterbug and the Big Apple. Many times we made fudge or candy together, played cards, Casino, Michigan and Monopoly. There were lots of dances at the Pan Hellenic Center, Plant Park, Villa Del Rio and other places. Weren’t we lucky. And we could drive real cars by then
WELCOME TO MY PERIWINKLES
Lula Dovi
Stark against a stony wall
where I had counted not at all
to have a periwinkle, rooted feet
pushed down between concrete,
there my uninvited plants luxuriate,
uncultivated blooms proliferate.
There was hardly room
for flowers to bloom
in that corner of utility
where trash cans, rank hostility,
I thought, defied fertility.
Persistent periwinkles, born to endure
the slights of man, to inure
themselves to sand and concrete,
drought and careless feet.
Welcome to my periwinkles, looking sprightly,
giving grace to a site unsightly.
HYMNING SUNDAY
By Lula Dovi
Sweet tranquility
neighborhood at rest
morning shadows a bit longer
dog out for a stroll
sniffing, marking,
alert as an elkhound can be
but missing the mailman’s alarming approach;
one frantic husband
clawing at the curbside water cutoff
wife bent over—with advice?
Sleepers late abed, catching up
not yet the lawnmowers, hedgeclippers
Some neighbors off to church—not I
My altar rises radiant
sunlit green, leafy holiness in raintree spires.
Believers, come sit in my swing
and sing with me the flower-song.
FOR MARY AND MARTIN
By Lula Dovi
How they cling to one another—
my college friend and her husband—
after the uneven seasons of sixty years
(best years, yesteryears, lost years).
Now their only daughter’s sudden death
shrouds the conversation,
etches once again deep loss lines
on the gravestone of memory,
recalls the loss of their only son
when in his twenties.
The banter today is a gentle plucking of heartstrings,
an interlude in their strict Judaic mourning,
a summation of six lives:
two parents, two lost children,
two adopted grandsons without a mother.
Caring words assuage some anguish,
wrap the memories, tie them up
as presents tagged for sharing.
ON J. B. MARTIN’S DEATH-1944
by Lula Dovi
Let the dull-edged knife of hope
be whet against the lonely stone
to cut and carve our last desire
into a pulp of chaos.
LUCY BATTLE
by Lula Dovi
September 2006
Lucy wove her spell
from the heart of the yellow brick house
full of well-chosen books, furnishings, mementoes
among soft-spoken pines on the lake
smiling veranda overlook
that hosted spirit breeze filled with birdsong.
Her spell was a tapestry of love--
Lucy and Jean—handholders, partners
Lucy and Carol
Lucy and Robert
Lucy and Greg
Lucy and Suzanna:
Tapestry of loving heartholders
stitchery that touched her students and friends
and stretched to Alabama family.
Her soulful listening was done with
sparkling eye, graceful wit—
her long-remembered monogram.
TO GEORGIA O’KEEFE
By Lula Dovi 2007
It could be Georgia’s magnolia
blooming on this tall magnolia tree,
a reproduction of her giantism
traced from canvas to branch.
But I know it’s not her white-petaled giant,
lavish among more modest tree blooms,
for many reasons:
Could she color a whiff of magnolia’s
springtime giddiness?
Did she ever mark the browning
of these stately flowers?
Or sketch the later eruption
of furry cones?
Or paint the curled-up leaves
that nag our noisy footsteps?
SANS SELVAGE
By Lula Dovi
…”Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care…”
From Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
Some dreams close with a selvage finish:
painful fissures of the psyche
hemmed together
with healing stitches,
or ravelings woven neatly by sleep,
dread overlaid by comfort.
But mending fails when my father
enters my dreams with problems unreconciled:
I forgot to call him so many times;
that is the fiction of the dream.
His deathbed rejection allows no selvage edge
in fact or in dreams.
The words of his will were blades
for ripping apart—
fraying forever the knots of kinship—
even in my dreams.
SANS SELVAGE 2
by Lula Dovi
Some dreams close with a selvage finish…
but not the ones that have me searching,
walking alone and fearfully on Howard Avenue at night,
an old brick street that I know,
yet one that does not lead home.
Then I know there is no home:
it is as gone as childhood,
gone with the lives once shared by mine.
Familial circle rent,
pulled loose by roots of time.
Outsider I will always be,
bereft of home-bound roads,
bound to a homeless destiny—
wandering an endless maze.
SUBURBAN EGRET
By Lula Dovi
Startling to see him standing
motionless in the median of the parking lot
a curving contrast against the grass and asphalt
all alert for lizards
long legs poised for pounce and snatch
long neck arching for the catch
white-feathered emblem of encroachment—his and ours.
REVELATIONS OF THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE
By Lula Dovi, 2007
When I see the Hubble photographs
my small world shrivels smaller
at the near end of the telescope.
What narrative is written in this universe
in these redshift reckonings?
I see a crucible for stars,
a galactic glimpse of creations
where Earth is peering at some imagined purpose
across millions of light years—
lens pointed at billions of stars and suns
where nebular clouds explode
into anthropomorphic forms.
But this end of the overseeing monster
is where the fires begin,
the lights illuminate,
my spirit catches fire,
where Earth is balancing its gases,
fending off cosmic rays,
nurturing all of life
with oceans, mountains, land and infinite DNA.
PALMETTOS RISING
By Lula Dovi
After thirty years palmettos have poked up in my yard
bristling with bravado, sharp fan-fronds, serrated stalks
not in my choice of sites.
I welcome them,
their defiance of death and rot,
their abandonment of earthbound prison,
reclaiming their life-intention.
Grubbed out skeletons, knotty castoffs that I rescued
but lost to cultivation.
Where was the life in their netherworld?
Did some minion of Pluto release it?
Asleep for thirty years, through drought and torrent,
their green fan-fingers wave a tropical hello.
JULY SWELTERS
By Lula Dovi
July 2007
These swift showers storm in circles
catching us along our busy dailiness
sweeping away the morning sun
too fast for us to get to shelter
without umbrellas’ partial protection.
Rumbling on across our rampant yards
the rain leaves roads that smoke
grass grown taller
vines that overnight have closed the gate
small toads not seen for years
rain lilies starring pale amethyst
and then July’s hot-as-hell sun in the afternoon.
Let’s make mint juleps!
DIALOGUES
By Lula Dovi 2008
I hear a caw-cus of crows in my treetop
and I am sure they know what they are talking about.
Their crow-conversation must cover
wind and rain, waterholes and seed sources,
the chief crow and he- and she- crows
and the two hawks circling above.
Crow specifics. Species certainty.
Crow cussing and discussing, crow percussion.
Woe to the wayward.
Is it true of our species?
The ones with black halos, black knobs in ears
and umbilicals feeding on blather in the ether.
Words and music bang about cyberially
but beg the bigger questions.
What are the questions or the answers?
So many unseen, unanswered speakers.
COMET EXPLOSION
by Lula Dovi, July 2005
Cometized by NASA,
pointed at a galaxy to peer at an eyeless mote
peerless precision, bending back time
aeons in our hands to show what could be done on Earth.
Instead we precisely atomize our bloodkin, our cities, our land.
HOLLY TREE ON PICWOOD ROAD
By Lula Dovi 2007
A second look showed me red berries
(I have passed that tree innumerable times on a dogwalk)
but I barely saw them among the holly’s leaves
a waxy wreath for winter’s holiday;
tendered for our solstice
as much as mistletoe.
Possession
(hurricane 2004)
By Lula Dovi
My house is mine again
after the fearful winds
tried my spirits,
tried the tree spirits, too,
with furious fists hurling ghostly
blows against my windows,
making oak trees rain down snares
of leaves and sticks.
Inside my house the darkness
blotted out familiar shapes.
Imagined demons pounded on my portals,
howled among deep shadows,
mocked my candlelight.
Next day: the sun, cleanup, neighbors sweeping and raking,
lifting of the beaten flower-heads confirming my ownership—
until the next storm comes.
IF I COULD TALK BIRDTALK
April 2005
stomping t
If I could talk birdtalk I would ask them:
Why do you shun the caterpillars on my oleander?
I entreat you, bluejays, wrens, woodpeckers, mockingbirds,
to savor something live and juicy,
with colorful black hairy spikes on orange seersucker body.
And look! My feathered frolickers,
why do you ignore the cadres of invading beetles,
black and red, benign but pestiferous,
swarming, copulating incessantly,
covering the walls of my house,
sneaking through doors,
embarrassing me in front of company?
Perhaps they know I don’t use spray
so I swat hordes of them at a time.
I pick off the camouflaged caterpillars, avenge myself by he beetles.
MARCH 2007
By Lula Dovi
After the shower the sky was piercing blue
pierced itself by
cloudships billowed on their way to spring.
The sun laid a welcome mat of shadows
beneath the rinsed-out trees.
Rivets of this ritual burned warm within me
melted sadness
sent me skyward
joining a half-circle of ibises
already turned to vernal March.
MOON PHASES
By Lula Dovi
I In a blue rice paper sky an early moon is etched full and flanked by starry clouds outstretched.
II Twilight moon, round and liquefied by sunglow pink,
hung back until
the June-brief night
hung unstarred backdrop
for its unmatched moonstone
fastened briefly at the darkening sky-throat of night.
MY BROKEN TOE
By Lula Dovi
I will rise above my broken toe,
I refuse to let it slow
my goings to or fro.
This crooked digit
makes me fidget
makes me want to show
how fast, how fleet my feet CAN go!
SEASONAL SUITE
By Lula Dovi
Christmas
Driveways stacked with Christmas debris
holiday wrappings declaring the end
big toy boxes emptied of their surprises.
Garbage trucks trolling the streets,
the season settles down serenely
to await the next ecclesiastical event
or pagan celebration
or rites of spring, summer, fall.
Spring Chirper
Little two-note chirper,
yellow breast-feathers and a fuzzy head,
never seen here before
now calls all day for the past week.
He never leaves my yard.
Is he lost or a new habitué?
Summer Spell
Cicadas’ chorus broadcasting
temperature readings, taken from tree to tree,
twilight brings a spell.
I am spellbound
by cicada choristers.
I hum with their twilight drumming.
Rain Lilies
Faint blue rain lilies
starred overnight all over my lawn
to let me know how welcome is the rain.
The mower will cut them down,
but leave their radiance in pink-tinged blue.
SYMPHONIES
By Lula Dovi
2007
Borodin’s symphony is digging a grave
in the bottomless part of my heart
a booming prelude
wrenching out my secrets
arranged in bearable hiding.
The notes of loud staccato
lay bare what no one can know.
All my hurt is hushed
when the pizzicato of Tschaikowsky
plays remembered happiness—
a college lounge in view
discoveries made new
mastery, mystery awaiting.
TECO’S TOWERS ( Tampa Electric Company)
(Linebaugh Avenue through Egypt Lake Neighborhood)
by Lula Dovi 2007
They marched by stealth
through the neighborhood
up and down the front and back streets.
Juggernauts led the electric charge
with giant spindles of cable
strung so deliberately
so ugly with their insulators—
ugliness that spun away
from central ganglia.
Electrified assault upon the people!
Towers of TECO
bearing transformers
humming with derision
pointing skyward
dwarfing trees and homes
in a transfigured neighborhood.
TROGLODYTES
By Lula Dovi
Miners they are:
But it’s the news they delve into with shafts of disconnect;
vocal picks parting the words and action from all veins of human ore.
We are Platonic troglodytes trapped in a cavern, straining to see light,
watching the stealth of stalagmites—happenings posited by broadcasters,
events gouached in meaningless chiaroscuro.
Hacksters, hucksters, mucksters—abroad—
Pity us.
WINTER-HAIKU
By Lula Dovi 2008
Winter warmth is too unseasonal.
A freeze will come
to blight the buds.
WHEN THE WORLD WAS SMALL
by Lula Dovi
When I was young the world was small.
Time trailed an unmarked ribbon before me
always blowing, following a wind
breathing a quicksand moment—
brief encounter with a doodle bug stirred from his sandy hole—
listening to the whippoorwill at night—
watching “bulbats” flit about a power pole—
studying a big locust, gaudy gold, brown and green—
catching fireflies for peanut butter jar lanterns—
keeping polliwogs in a bowl in my bedroom.
Time corkscrewed, the ribbon wrapped,
little world spun outward into an unknown orbit
without bats, fireflies, whippoorwill, locust.
Well-sprayed suburbs grewww…and grewww…and grewww.
LEAVING HOME
By Lula Dovi
April 2006
Loquats lullaby the cradled windows
big oaks sway across the roof;
their murmurs echo all the secrets
leavings, returnings, lovings, missings.
Father’s paintings taken down
Mother’s glassware, china homeless now
mahogany buffet gone to a new home.
How do you say goodbye to a home?
With a sigh, with a tear in the eye,
with festered feelings
in corners of the heart
in closets of memory
with deep sighs and tears in the eyes.
Still squirrels come looking lakeside;
mallards with maverick white gander
come searching too for handouts.
They don’t hear the sighs
or see the tears in the eyes.
They seek the new hands scattering handouts.
LONELY NIGHT
By Lula Dovi 2007
A dog barking in the night
reminded me of
lonely nights of youth and age.
That dog’s unanswered distant bark
told me: dark of night, dark of heart,
and loneliness is worse with age.
As lonely too as the whistle of a train—
the freight train that waddled at night
through our neighborhood
on its way to Port Tampa.
Trains of thoughts now switched to sidings
as lonely as that whistle.
TURNING POINT
By Lula Dovi 2008
For six years I’ve watched
my widowed neighbor Ron embalm his house
with grief, abandon, solitude.
His lawn lost all its luster
as shrubs and flowers
were defeated by the weather.
His big cigar, macho talk and beers
belied the tears that fell just recently.
So his son confided in me
when he told of an ultimatum
given for redecorating, refurbishing
and Moving On, Dad!
No woman would want to come into
this neglected house, his son declared.
Soon Pam’s hobbies, knick-knacks, furniture
spilled into the carport in a jumble.
Both sons spent weeks in painting,
pulling carpet, remodeling
two bathrooms, a kitchen and other rooms.
Trucks and workmen went back and forth
replacing carpets, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher
and other fixtures.
Ron is Moving On!
MORE POETRY: BY LULA DOVI
It is lushly August when the summer downpours and heat demand the biggest, noisiest shows of every living thing: a pond full of frogs to fill the air for blocks around; periwinkles, pink and white and lavender spreading everywhere; the passion vine gone crazy to the top of the red crepe myrtle where it boasts some blue-fringed blossoms that look like spiders; everywhere the birds that fuss and sing and warn---the pair that built a nest in my mailbox but never occupied it.
Today I pulled up a daisy and a dandelion even though their beauty reminded me: The only reason I pulled them was that they were out of place. They might have rebuked me because they seemed to say,”Look at us and marvel how we withstood the drought!”
In a blue rice paper sky the early moon is etched
full and flanked by star-strung clouds outstretched
****************Twilight moon, round and liquefied by sunglow pink,
hung back until
the June-brief night
hung an unstarred backdrop
for its unmatched moonstone
fastened briefly at the darkening sky-throat of night.
Man:Abstract
Words:Abstract
Spirals wound unnumbered times—
non-Pierian springs
bounced backward to themselves—
never arcking—
lost transcontinentally
among the final filaments
of multivalent universes
coiled and fused-frozen
cable, satellite, tube
The mountains purpled with a coming storm.
Thunder wracked the ridges.
All the creatures stilled themselves
as apoplectic winds and lightning lashed the peaks.
Hollows quivered with the onslaught,
creeks and branches shrilled with strain.
Afterward the valleys sighed a thankful mist.