Hinted reality
ancient spirit, ancestor breath
grazing flowers, batting lightly,
sighing with memories
Petal confetti, celebratory leaves
marking sloughs of years, one’s
perennialism hastening and plumping,
bruising and shrinking, crinkling to paper,
eaten by the reach of ground and
hunkering into dormancy, germ
starting over again
~ Lady
Thuvian throatsong, patter of Cherokee drums,
congregation of tents, comfortable nests of campfire
communities, dogs settled in the dirt thumping tails
once in a while, watching, trusting, us on our beat-up
old couch surrounded by third floor art–so many centers
of the world in their own sweet ways
so thankful
~ Lady
Held on a leash in life’s lease,
the buttresses of relaxation we hurriedly make
outside bookends of workdays for the great big
blue-green-tan-white panorama
of Nature
Beneath sky blue or
the wrinkled brow of clouds’ introspection
I want to walk, walk in and under and marvel
on this marble of planet
Longer stays in the knit of what matters
Idylls of Heaven on Earth
and Heaven in Heaven
~ Lady
Spinning dust around clump of star
banging itself into planet, battered matter
germinating feather, fishscale, skin and chitin
Years around sun like cyclical menstruation,
seasons ringing into the layers of trees, canopy
provisions bearing fruit, leaf, bark, home, even
exoskeleton appetizers for woodpeckers
Early histories of harmony, isotopic evolution
in Earth over time traced by argon, potassium,
lead and hafnium, rock rebar and feather thread–
the interrelations of things
~ Lady
Of honeyed pastries sampled by cupids bows of beestung lips, of truth’s shimmering antimony, of galena’s grit, poison powdered from the monadnock to kohl the pretty eyes of infants of India, of beautiful dreamers destroying nightmares, the bewilderment of complex confusions, dazzling disarrays brushed into the great mother’s dustpan, reverently tucked up and put away, of murmur’s collected chorus wandering under the scintillating cast of wondering stars
~ Lady
Be fain to leap
from comfortable sludge
of warm pajamas to gymnopédies
of beginner’s mind like a monk taking
three breaths, saying a gatha,
and getting out of bed
A long draught of water
fresh as the splash of a harp,
clean cotton, naked feet on the floor,
koto music and meditation,
sunrise Éthiopiques for
the new day
~ Lady
Finch
short shuffling inching,
hopping forward on dappled perch,
ebullient warble projected at the hen
of his affection
She flirtatiously tilts
a long blade of grass from her beak,
head tipped just so, still,
listens
From his puffed up chest
arias of moonlit skies
and paradise
~ Lady
Inclination for ornamentation
for ceremonial reflections about necessities of life
the indulgence of free time scrimshawed
on ivory, cultivation of craft culminating
in the ballroom dance of celtic knots
on niello, mandalic meditations
on damascene, gold gilded
onto the firelight of night
~ Lady
He fixed his face
in work’s intense solemnity
cornerstone chinking into place
humming build your love, build your love,
build your love on a strong foundation
Birthing something new
from the gristle and grind of his hands’
and mind’s labors, transcendent cadenzas
shining on facets of transfigurations
red carpets popping out like tongues
from advent boxes, discoveries
of inner maiden voyages
~ Lady
Dark-eyed junco dits, smacks
and tinkles chips–metal songed members
of flocks, passerines shuffling on perches,
passapied rushes, neck raises, fan tails
and chases, badinage of loving nests and
stubborn pecks, community dynamics
and avian adultery
~ Lady