that's mrs. mediocrity to you

the squirrel in the tree
i almost can’t see

racing hard
against gravity’s sunrise

hurry hurry
mask survival

in the distance
screams of geese
folding wings
to cold dark water

ever-floating
weary bones
through a litany
of maps
named somewhere

we’re all hearing
the same bold song

set loose
in a blistering sky

all huddled for warmth
beneath fleece
or feather

the ogre
and the ingenue

wrapped together
in the velvet clip
of silence

listening

suddenly
there is all this color
all this light
shining green through
blue glass
and
it seems absurd
to think winter
equals hibernation
but i awaken
and there it is
a new year
that did not exist
yesterday

.

.

.

a hatchmark of trees
filters lavender sky

the blue heron swings right
just overhead
flying over a house
marking time and
strong weather

the storms have filled
the swamp again

the grass goes green

a single daffodil
blooms from a nest
of brown leaves

nothing and everything
beginning

.

.

.

you sing me songs of february summer
and i laugh at the absurdity
because
nothing makes sense anymore
and everything

is a tune
from those long ago years
when we believed
in certainty

still
i smile and i dance
at words
spilled from
wist and sunshine

so ripe with yesterday’s
short season of naiveté

when we were young
and you were golden
and i
was just a rose

.

.

.

snow falls gently through a sky bleeding sunshine

through the closed door i hear geese
warming their way through a morning
most of them will survive

i cling to small things. moments, really
and wish i could gift them to you

i know a whole list of people with that name

the miracles gather and hover
hoping to land, gently

winter is coaxing autumn to bed
with an ever-changing quilt
of cozy promises

a patch of blue peeks through worn cotton batting

needs no mending

.
.
.

.

and hummingbirds, too

.

tree frogs and sunshine

and a big bowl of sky for breakfast

.

my heart dances on the morning

when spring came to town

.

.

.

this is not a poem and i am not my shadow

the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference

there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips

 perhaps there are no tulips

perhaps where i see purple you see green

perhaps this is skin and not plaster

there are no certainties

on this day

in this sun

or this room

with ghost shapes

dancing

but this is not a poem and

therefore none

are necessary

.

.

.

.

wintergreen

in a sea of white

and neutral

.

.

.

.

light on dark, old on new, shiny on dull. we’re married to the magic of remembrance, made bold by possibility, held aloft on a nail in the wall of existence.

a new calendar cracks open, full of empty days, blank spaces, blocks of time.

i want to leave it, the entire book, unmarred.

i know i won’t. i know there will be appointments to schedule, birthdays to remember, plans to be reminded of, just as i know i’ll forget to look sometimes, when i get caught up in the vortex of living.

it’s winter again, it’s new years again, it’s thursday again. we march like soldiers through a forest of seasons and wish to be the one in command.

.

i bought a new small frying pan in december, to replace the old one i’d burned peppers in one too many times. but i don’t use it much. the old cast iron one discarded by my 89-year-old friend as she moved from home to apartment sits on my stove now, always at the ready. it turns my eggs just a little dark, but i love flavor of the stories it adds to my food.

.

i don’t have a word or a resolution or even an intention pointing my way on 2016’s compass. i have this pan made of borrowed promises, i have these same four walls to hold me in, i have this sky that is forever creeping in my window.

.

i have everything i need.

.

.

.

.

.

flies the apple

of my eye

.

.

.

.