Absence

The morning is mitigated,
part cloud, part mild sun,
the silence of windsong
rattled by Sunday gung-ho gun shots,
sky scattered with birds then scoured by rain,

but the stolid, rocky monolith of grey,
the block unchanged by wind, rain or sun,
indifferent to birds and bullets,
the unmitigated dreariness,
is the absence of you.

The Oracle’s Easter wish

Since it’s a feast day, I thought she might have something to say about it.

Green, this prairie,

flower-tangled and full of light.

No dark secrets here

that only priests can explain.

A rose is a rose is a…

Bird blooms shine,

soft as dusk,  beautiful as dawn;

listen to their song.

Sprung spring

First Sunday lunch outside this year. Hastily cleared away one lawnmower, one bicycle, a lot of plant pots waiting to have something done with the contents, and there we are, watching the pheasants of what turns out to be an established breeding colony (yay!) and their crazy aerial acts. I hesitate to call it flying…

One hot dog getting a dose of sunshine.

Sunday sunshine

 

Autumn

is hard with such

beauty, gold-leafed and flame

hacked red and bloody. Feathers fall,

cooling.

Is there not enough useless death

that soft fur, sleek feather

should lie cold, spring

barren?

Sunday afternoon

 

Poulenc clarinet flutes in the kitchen,

Hammer blows beat from the cow stalls in the barn,

Woodstove murmurs low in the study,

While rain falls silent on the field outside,

And kestrel perches on the rail of the porch,

Forgetful perhaps of the stone den behind,

The ungainly, unpredictable predators within.