An errant breeze
Whispered at the lake edge
Unseen by any
But the unforgiving moon
A single undulation
Barely a ripple
Moved outward across the lake
Then gently disappeared
Into the center of the lake’s depths
Leaving only stillness
On the tea shop shelf
A new tea to try
A tea, for once, not from Asia
Beside the sealed tin
A notice read “Limited Supply”
Naturally I accepted the challenge
And made my purchase
Before chance was gone.
Two cups later I knew
This was a great tea,
A special tea. I wanted more.
But already, there was none
Not then or even
Months later.
I saved the label,
Just in case, and
Searched the internet.
The tea came from
Fields in Africa
Ravaged by civil war.
This news brought
The sorrow of the tea’s land
Into my home
And would not let me forget.
It was indeed
A very special tea.
I walk into city streets
Which others do not see.
I play beneath Autumn leaves
smell the dust of the leaf death,
The mulch of a forest floor—
Yet few others follow me here.
I run with the circus parade,
Laugh with the clowns
And sing with the kalliope,
Though others near hear only
The whispers of their own breath.
I walk into the garret
Of desolation and despair,
Ride as with the wind
Through nights of rage.
I am slivered on the spear,
Severed upon a sword,
Gutted by all the weapons of war.
All this and more do I find
With Kandinsky and Klee,
Vincent and Pablo P.,
Chagall and Bracque,
Miro, Dali (and more)
Upon a quiet afternoon
At the Guggenheim.
There might have been
A few ashes in a dish
In a room filled with light
From another hot dry day
Miles and miles away
And the sound of a long dress
Brushing a highly polished floor
The distant echo of a horse’s hooves
Or the scream of a car’s tires
But the painter left no trace
Of that other story
Only an old wall of adobe or brick
Where time has eaten away
Bits of carefully layered paint,
A barred window revealing no interior
Only a darkness framed with stone
Stained in an upper corner,
Blackened, as if from fire
The only link to the room
With the dish of ashes
Is the shadow to one side of the window
Which might be a deadened vine
A growth of fungus
Or a fire’s ashes trapped
Against the weathered stone wall:
A shadow shaped like Africa
No, there is a clue
Though what it tells
Is left to the viewer
The painter named his work
“Drums in the Night”
Ripped from its mother plant
Thrust into unprepared clay-rich soil
The geranium persisted,
Grew without nurture.
But its blooms were few
And nearly hidden
By its own leaves—
Brief flares of red-orange fire
Within a green surround
Spreading broad leaves
Over the garden corner edging
Onto converging paths.
Ruthlessly cut back
For passing feet,
The geranium compensated
Growing tall, high above
Its neighboring plants.
More blooms appeared,
Some bursting upward
As if to touch the sky.
Then the storm came
Whipping the trees
From side to side
Before the rain descended
Like Niagara escaped from capture,
Followed by the pitiless
Pelting of ice pellets….
When the morning sun shone
On that garden corner
The geranium lay sprawled
Once more across the paths.
Yet its once skyward blooms
Shot their fire still
Defiant and strong
With a promise to rise again
In fire to reach the sky.
The words ricochet
off the book jackets,
slyly spill over the lip
of an unexpecting eyelid,
slither through the harem lattice
of a shuttered ear,
run in succulent rivulets
washing over silenced flesh,
seeping past the barrier skin.
Dangerous in ambush,
the words infiltrate
a mind once deaf.
behind the willow tree
above the tents
beyond memory
he waited
between fog and rainbow
among the fairy folk
against the night
he waited
past yesterday
through the day
across the centuries
he waited
beside the stream
down the sky
underneath my song
he waited
Sixty-four colors
All in one box!
A Christmas gift,
Even though coloring books
Were not my favorite thing.
Why was it so important
To color within the lines?
Why couldn’t a horse be blue,
Or the grass pink?
But those sixty-four colors
Were really tempting.
So many choices.
Some awful like “Flesh”
Which wasn’t.
And Silver and Gold
Which weren’t either.
I soon found favorites
Red-Violet, Burnt Sienna,
Orchid, Turquoise,
Sky Blue, Lemon Yellow
And plain Green and Red.
I played with the others
But they rarely made me
Smile the way my favorites did.
Sometimes I just liked to look
At all sixty-four sitting in the box
And think of possibilities.
That was good, too.