Settling into Time

Lightening moves through,

Off to the northwest

Like vapors,

Pushing away a storm 

That is sometimes best to bypass.

I suppose

I can just tell myself my

Stories as I figure the way out.

Sky flickers and the night

Unsettles more, but softly. 

My friend said she's going to

Turn away for a while. 

In some cases that could be

A perfectly balanced thing

To do. In others 

Perhaps not as balanced

As it is the radical shift at 

Time's end. 

I don't think I can turn 

Away for a while, 

But I can turn and face

The rush of past, 

Gleam of future 

When it's barely there 

Anymore. 

I have to wonder,

Looking at photos and gardens and things,

What does beauty really mean?

Lately I've given up a great many

Assumptions.

I have so little time

To become aware

It doesn't really matter

I guess.

I untangle my hair

Like a night-gowned prairie

Woman, and 

Put it in a braid

For the night: I 

Imagine and remember and

Call back to my lovers.

Outside and in

The disarray is fevered 

And I think

It's the way life is

Sometimes

I imagine the yard and swaths

Of green blowing tall

Because unmowed, 

I see the gardens beautiful in 

Their blooming, changing seasons,

Filled now with need of weeding.

I imagine going back to lie 

In the long grasses of the

Plains. In reverie 

The house leans into deeper

Beauty's flaws, its disrepair

We see and cannot change, 

At least right now.

At least right now 

I'm like this place.

So Beautiful This Wind

There are people like me

Sitting in the edges of the wind

Wondering how we manifest 

What we know as the elders we are

Connected by nothing

But physics. 

Mechanical Lessons

God damn

The mower just refuses to be fixed 

I wanted light, setting sun, peace, rapprochement

Weeded gardens and weeds trimmed, all

To arrive tonight by my dint

Not so

But out there his peach teeshirt

Recedes toward the back plot

Waiting for vegetables in

This weather crap that we've messed up,

Thoughtless humans.

I'll not dwell on the meta

I'll just try to keep the beauty 

Of this tiny micro-bit up here in mind

Peach

Out there

Peeking through

The back spruce

We need the spruce

To keep out the dust

When Bobby ploughs. 

His teeshirt 

Out there 

Fades like magic into 

The sky hiding behind

Spruces, and I know that is 

The sunset

But hadn't seen how we blend and fade into 

The ethos, this beautiful 

Gaia. 

It is orange 

Behind blue

Spruce

And this light

This air

This breathing 

This unearthly panorama

Saves us,

Nurturing us 

As we extinguish 

The old. 

And meanwhile in 

The wind bringing in the front

We grow young

On this cusp of 

We are.

Moving into Balance

Down side of the ridge

The western sky bands 

Colors of an unsettled

Sunset. It was brilliant

Looking from the second floor back window.

I wonder how many souls

Miss extraordinary light 

As it wends

Its way to the other side.  

For now, the grey stratus, cirrus and nimbus

Lurk and call; 

There was an earlier diamond 

Of sky blue

And now the gun metal light

Gone the red and pink, while

Symphony score

Rises in a night that's

Trying to quiet;

Bullfrogs arrive. 

Scampering subsides.

Comes Calm

Watched red-orange sky recede,
Glancing long into my
Rear view mirror,
Coming home from Seneca,
East through the 
Finger Lakes Forest.

Going over earlier,
How beautiful it was, and
Green: long light
Bathing wooded stands
Punctuating plush watered
Hills, tip of Appalachia.

I knew, despite the truly
Cold May, June days,
And infuriating rain that has
Interfered in
Planting vegetables,
That eventually
Summer would have to come,
Heralding the road's sparse
Path to summer pasture,
Reminding me there is the
Local rhythm, to take me
To my thankful place:
Bobby's snow-bound-weary cattle
Finally gone, to fields across
The Forest's ridge, 
To Hector Grazing.