that's mrs. mediocrity to you

The swamp down the road from us has dried up on one side, leaving small puddles filled with frantic fish and no escape.

For the birds, herons and turkey vultures and seagulls alike, it is a smorgasbord.

For photographers, it has been a gift.

This is the second time in the past 10 years this has happened. Heat and drought adding up to evaporation.

The food chain forming its own long necklace of death, and life.

I walk down the road and watch it happen without knowing why. Herons by the handful when usually, seeing one is a gift. Vultures making beautiful tracks across the sky, too far away to reveal their own ugliness.

And all the while, little fish, swimming their way towards nowhere.

dawn rips the blindfold from my eyes
forcing me to watch another day

unravel

time slipping through stone and finger
with the same giggle of impermanence

whispers

to a heart that takes no prisoners
and a mind that gives everything

away

a broken belt lies on the floor
tanned flesh and silver buckle

remembering

smaller nights and sunshine’s warmth
and all of those tomorrows gathering

promise

and potential in dust-filled corners
stacked with empty broken boxes

waiting

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

::

half empty

always whole

::

half ghost, half zephyr

alight with silence

no compass necessary

carry me home

everywhere i go i see angry people
lips pursed and stiff with indignation
faces red and closed and pontificating

their way towards purple

and some days it makes me laugh and
other days it makes me frightened so
i stay holed-up in my hermit house

digging in a few feet deeper

watching butterflies and dragons
slay petunias and wayward periwinkle and
cedar waxwings choosing only the ripest

berries from a tangled mass of elders

as i pretend not to notice for fear
of scaring them off with a ruby-lipped
smile and a heart burst open

seeds of joy spilling out

floating

away

like tufts of dandelion

and no one questions if it’s fair or just
or whether the gypsy moth has more right
to be alive than the hard-scabbed ugly

beetle

.

.

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

the collectors pull up first and extra early
no shame for them regardless of the rules
circling like vultures waiting for their chance

and then the kids who’ve saved their pennies
looking for a new to them toy or perhaps a friend
with a frozen plastic smile to hug tight at night

the grandmothers in perfect polyester prints
can’t believe how expensive everything is these
days but are really just looking to buy time

a woman who goes from sale to sale carefully
choosing clothes and shoes to send to children
in africa – we give her everything she wants –

two young women who might be drunk or always
silly and don’t want to leave, looking to spend,
literally, every last dime they have

the boys who come overnight and vandalize
my father’s car, leaving evidence of what they
think is manhood or prowess, but steal nothing

bookworms who know what they are looking for
and are happy to rifle through our fifty-cent
selection, no shades of grey or romance here

the little birthday girl who loves horses and
has saved all her money to add to her collection,
she gets an extra breyer pony or two, free

a new mother searching for that perfect bag
of beads as her husband-boyfriend drives by again
and again saying you got a screaming kid here

the destitute father and teenage son who may
or may not be homeless but manage to tease
each other about kitten posters just the same

all weekend we sit and watch things we have loved
change hands, things we’ve never used earn a dollar,
things becoming the people that take them home

.

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets in a celebration of summer for poetics, join us!

This is me, most mornings, padding through my garden in flip flops and nightgown, camera or iphone in hand.

The same sky is always above me, I’ve traveled these paths thousands of times. The flowers change, a garden is an ever-evolving life force, and I’ve learned, over the years, that there is only so much I can control.

Another lesson that gardening has taught me about life.

We’ve been through a lot together, my garden and I – at this point, we feel like old friends. The same give and take is required to keep us speaking, we both know that we will always be there for each other, no matter what. We are comfortable with each other, whether I am singing out loud to Joni Mitchell, or sitting in silence to watch the sun set.

I put a lot of work into this relationship, and in return, I receive lots of flowers. Sometimes when I am least expecting them. And we all know that those are the very best kind.

When I sit on my patio, surrounded by plants and flowers and hidden from the rest of the world, it feels like a hug. My garden is not perfect, I see all her flaws from where I sit, but then again, she also sees mine.

We are always forgiving each other, always making allowances, always finding new ways to nourish her soil and my soul.

I grow here more than any of the flowers.

Trees I planted as tiny twigs now tower above my head. But our roots are intertwined.

The same sky is always above us.

i found her in a box at
the back of a cupboard
all dust-covered and
crinkled with age

at twenty three
already thinking
life was so dim
and so perilous

so blank and filled
with dark possibility
cynical and funny
and cosmically correct

i want to hug her

pat her on the back
and say, there, there
i want to fill her

pages with platitudes
and posture and
cross out words
like bleak and barren

make notes in red
down the sides of
yellowed paper saying
ha! and really?

but instead i hold her
carefully to protect
her vulnerability and
the more i read

the more i smile
because in truth
i find myself
beginning

to fall in
love with her
a little

she gets me

.

.

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

i wrap a blanket
’round my shoulders
and step outside
to search for meteors

blinking blank sky
tinged pink by cityscape
and two low clouds
hung just off center

the southern cross
points slightly southwest
and i face north to seek
that one true star

feeling grounded
and whole and tiny
beneath her ever
standing compass

all i need
to find my way
to all the home
that matters

on the periphery
the pleiades dance
because they know
no one can see

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Poetics (A beautiful sadness), join us!

::

the snail days

of summer

::