Lilac

Blossomed full lilac long years ago,

Beauty’s lush petals have slipped

through open fingers

man by man,

day by day, year by year.

Desired flame dwindles to

cooling ember soon to ash.

Is this all I am?

Oh, Love!  Beauty was never

mine, but yours to behold.

The Plant and The Gardener

I am the Plant

waiting for nourishment from

the Rain and the Soil.

I am the Gardener

bringing water and care

for my Plant in its container.

My Plant is unable to move; I must watch

when the Plant needs to be trimmed, shaded, and fed.

The Plant that I am depends on

Me, the Gardener, to remove

dead paths that nutrients

may seek, robbing

live paths in mid blossom.

If I am to flower, then I am to prune,

bringing growth in new green limbs.

Cat on a Fence

She sits there

waiting for the tom

or a robin.  She preens her long

Siamese coat.  She waits for the

Someone to let her back in to her

comfort, her food bowl, her safe bed.

She tucks against the

elements and unseen enemies

and imagined dangers and her fears.

She and I wait on our fences,

not willing to venture out, sitting on

 both sides of a decision.

 

Blue

I am blue frigid ice, still and deep and transparent,

dripping away day by day to my death.

With smooth curving waves on top and gurgling washing machine

underneath – the chemical blue swimming pool work mode is

unnatural in appearance and masks my clear nature.

I am blue eyes and dark grey edges searching intently into your

Soul until you cannot meet my gaze going back into myself and

both of us at once.  I am blue ink flowing from God onto paper

in ideas I did not create and cannot explain nor take credit for.

There is blue mood sadness and melancholy matching that ice blue cold

so closely that no one wants to linger long at my side.

I am blue in every piece of clothing that was my high school wardrobe until,

I changed;

told it was too much and that I needed to be different than the blue

that I was, the blue that I loved.   Okay, I said, and walked away

from blue me only to return a lifetime of years later to find me,

again,

rich blue velvet in ageless style.

Rumi's Poem (not mine - so worth hearing I'm posting it on my blog)

Those who don't feel this Love

pulling them like a river,

those who don't drink dawn

like a cup of spring water

or take in sunset like supper,

those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,

that old trickery and hypocrisy.

If you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.

I've torn the cloth to shreds

and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,

wrap your beautiful robe of words

around you,

and sleep.

-Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

Outside and (G)In

Hostels and beer on the sidewalk café

                Gates Foundation and biotech

                Approachable folks, accepting

                                Willing to add a sketch to the book of European experiences

Talk flows without effort as if old friends have met again

Four-star hotel and wine with ho’rs dourves

                Pressed shirts and gowns and heels and dangling diamonds

                Congregate in safe groups

                Excluding in tight huddles

A challenge to seek

                The gift of a sketch as I

Escape the corner box!

This is Outside and Gin

Blue Veil

  Silk blue veil covering the silver-shimmer
sequins of fish, she
dances her windy watery soft
shimmy.  Unhappy with her outfit,
she changes into something
brown, then foamy green, then a
bottomlessly deep black with
white lace and caps accented in wide stripes
of a metal riveted belt in two layers.
She wakes in the morning
yawning clouds in her sea gull
pajamas of Berkeley cloud
patches; dreamy and Tolkien,
magical as if she'd just left a night
in Middle Earth.  Matching
her lover's blissfull look with
clarity and calm;  two mirrors of
eternal blue.  At night she brings
out a velvet gown of midnight,
studded with rhinestone stars and
she flirts with the crescent watching
from above.

Tweed

Irregular tweed blue bay

Wrapped tonight in your evening peach shawl,

Dusk accents your lovely

Stony necklace with a shiny city bridge

clasp

Saturday Morning Sister Poem

Meet me at the intersection

                Of Me and You

How could we find each other

                Anywhere else?

And it’s important that we both

                Show up

For how could it otherwise be

                Than at the edge of You and Me

Full Moon Grasses

Full moon grasses

lit silver by sister orb’s

metal breath of night

only waves from

dark sky breezes

let luster peacock

off each thin blade

and so the wind

and the grass

and the sun and the moon,

and so they play

all night

as we sleep

Cottonwood Trees

By the cottonwood trees next to the railroad tracks

                Down a dirt road sits a tiny white house

Davenport on the porch with the built in smell of Grandpa’s

                Copenhagen

Blue and white striped overalls

Scruff beard and a white shock of thick hair

Harmonica

Jokes and laughter and fishing poles with worms

                Waiting

For a trek through the snake grass and cows to

                The river

Whatever fish came back to the white house

                Were a tribute to Grandpa’s patience with

                Tangled lines, snags, and baiting hook after hook

Stop at the red iron hand pump for water to clean our catches

                For Grandma to bread and fry

Served with sliced cucumbers from the garden

                Behind the outhouse with a crescent moon cutout

                                For light

Those cucumbers with vinegar, sugar, salt, and thin slices of

                Onion

Served on china, meals sometimes cooked on the

                Woodstove

Slices of vanilla ice cream in a cantaloupe bowl

Pinochle and pinions at the kitchen table at night

Sleeping in the double bed with two sisters

Trains rattling us to slumber

Waking to coffee scents with clinking teaspoons and

low voices in the kitchen

Pictures of dogs smoking cigars and playing

                Poker

The clock on the wall with the witch or

                The kids, indicating stormy or sunny playtime outside

Cousins

                Left-handed Ruth on my right handed side

                At Thanksgiving dinners

Stealing Dutch’s cigarettes

Hearing of Rip chasing the stick and it getting stuck in his throat

Wood pile smelling of railroad, that hot-sun creosote

Poncho the Chihuahua, Grandma’s dog

The cellar door outside

                Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz

Peppermint lozenges, pink, for us in a candy dish

                On the corner of the buffet that now rests

                In my living room, carrying the essence of

                Sweet memories

Harmonica playing

You Are My Sunshine

                Still makes me smile; causes a lump in my throat

Happy memories

Sixteen Year-Old summer days vacuuming and doing their laundry and

                Soaking in having them all to myself

Beautiful sepia Oval pictures of youth

                Young

Ed and Anna

In love 60 years