Free at Last
—Photo by Taylor Graham
FINDING THE SIXPENCE
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento
Eggs of many colors are now hidden
in flowered greens along a picket fence.
Easter time, and all the children bidden
in formal dress. Among carnation scents—
one plastic egg contains the many sixpence.
______________________
SWALLOWS
—Carol Louise Moon
Out from the gray
of a hazy sea
a swoop of swallows
glides a colorless sky.
In silence they fly
following the tip
of a conductor’s baton.
Golden harps are their souls.
______________________
MYSTERY OF BEES
—Carol Louise Moon
a gray wall of packed dirt
scraggle trees—dusty
rusty branches with mistletoe
geometric chalk rock
at the base of any
skinny tree trunk
dead leaves and bark
both dark and light
a poison oak bed
red tiny berries
zigzag light and shadow
five red bricks stacked on
a patio; a white-breasted
sparrow flitting about
trees without bees
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento
Eggs of many colors are now hidden
in flowered greens along a picket fence.
Easter time, and all the children bidden
in formal dress. Among carnation scents—
one plastic egg contains the many sixpence.
______________________
SWALLOWS
—Carol Louise Moon
Out from the gray
of a hazy sea
a swoop of swallows
glides a colorless sky.
In silence they fly
following the tip
of a conductor’s baton.
Golden harps are their souls.
______________________
MYSTERY OF BEES
—Carol Louise Moon
a gray wall of packed dirt
scraggle trees—dusty
rusty branches with mistletoe
geometric chalk rock
at the base of any
skinny tree trunk
dead leaves and bark
both dark and light
a poison oak bed
red tiny berries
zigzag light and shadow
five red bricks stacked on
a patio; a white-breasted
sparrow flitting about
trees without bees
Guidepups
—Photo by Taylor Graham
SPEAKING OF THE NIGHT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
This morning the puppies are a heaving
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
This morning the puppies are a heaving
crying mass, wild with longing.
I open the gate, let them out in springtime
green, past untidy lawn, down the cast-
off garden where they walk on stone—
as if they could pull creation back together,
make it flow. What do they know
of elemental forces? The quicksilver moon
breathing in full midnight over a slatted
roof. Owl winging soundless, taloned.
Clasp my hands in wonder that I can’t hold.
_____________________
SPRING MYSTERIES
SPRING MYSTERIES
—Taylor Graham
No more pie-tins of gruel
for our pups to wade through like swamp
at the edge of life’s currents—
they’ve gulped their bowls clean
of kibble, first meal as night dims to dawn
above the slatted roof.
Now they’re crashed like small dead cars
but not motionless—breathing
in sighs and whimpers that lift the fine
fox-hairs of their cheeks. They sleep
heaped, or scattered as in rabbit-chase,
open-air to weather; sheltered
from winged shadows. It’s spring—time
when dark’s owl and day’s hawk
are out hunting to feed their own young
famished as our puppies for their
lives. We circle like mothers
who can’t get close to their dreams.
_____________________
AN HOUR BEHIND
—Taylor Graham
The fleeting breath of dawn’s a bell-ringer
calling me outside to such bird commotion,
I thought the leafing oaks were full of griffins,
song too bold for a native nesting species;
gathering force in the filigree of vetch twining
the stockwire fence, and penetrating hidden
passages of ground squirrel, their safe alleys
from rocky hillside to the tenderness of garden.
And I knew I was too late to catch this spring,
though barely beginning on its mystery ways.
____________________
Today's LittleNip:
Nothing is too small. Nothing is too "ordinary" or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.
—Rita Dove
___________________
—Medusa
—Photo by Taylor Graham