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- Foxy Flatterer, Savvy Crow, Breaking Gray
- Bungee Praise, Let it Shine
- On the Shoulders of Giants, Ever-gray, Go Away!
- Bookmarks, Ocean Edges; Proud Waves
- Old, Inanimate Friends, Spruce Sitter
- Scented Tangents, Scattered Brain
- Color Through my Window, Clothesline Hanging Low
- I was not myself Today, Compliment Fishing
- Rich in Hoosier Green
I like neither coy evasiveness nor
exuberant flattery. Be straightforward and frank;
I may still refuse your request, but I'll consider it. And I'll respect you.
as manipulation,
gushing,
"Oh, you'd be so good!"
I laughed my refusal,
"Sorry, but flattery
doesn't work with me"
I've learned from Aesop;
I know what I am:
neither quetzal nor nightingale.
And I don't need any help
with my cheese.
Caw!
10-29-02
The dawn breaks,
gray and gusty,
dragging an angry East wind
along with it.
I look to the field
and see headlights:
back and forth,
back and forth,
plowing stubble.
Silver maples shrug off
their yellow leaves like
dogs shaking off water.
Torpid flies cling by their
miserable little legs
to our kitchen screens.
Branches scratch my windows,
buckets of leaves fly past.
And now, the drizzle:
spitting splotches on the sidewalk,
dampening the lawn,
dampening my mood.
Here is a fine day to fit my frame of mind,
a day perfected in pervasive gloom.
Let no ray of hope find room
to dispel the leaden gray
of this dismal day.
You've come early this year, November
I hope you haven't come to stay.
October 29, 2002
how wonderful you are
so that you will tell me
how wonderful I am.
I only give so that
I can receive in return.
It's bungee praise.
While I'm praising you,
I'm thinking of how
terrific I must be
to praise you so well.
It's yo-yo praise,
bungee praise;
I never let go of the string.
11-5-02
(thoughts on watching the dawn)
There is light in the east
and it spreads to the west.
The light can't help spreading;
It fills the sky with its glory.
Let it shine.
The blackness gives way
to blurred shapes and dark colors,
every minute they sharpen,
every minute they brighten.
Let there be light;
let it shine.
oct. 23, 2002
Isaac Newton wrote "If I have seen
farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
John Newton wrote, "I was
blind, but now I see."
We believe without seeing everything, without understanding all; We believe so that we can
see.
Do you insist on making
your own mistakes or do you
learn from the mistakes of others?
How far can we see?
How far can we see with
blinded eyes that rarely
look heavenward?
How far can we see with
souls that are cast down
and disquieted?
O say, can we see?
O, say, do we want to?
LIght is so convicting.
LIght is both illuminating
and blinding.
Give me some shoulders
to stand on.
Tall shoulders. Strong shoulders.
All I see now is dirt.
Ever-gray,
Go Away!
with no promise of rainbows
or afternoon sunshine,
Just an everlasting,
spirit-dragging gray.
All-day gray.
Even my brain feels
overcast and foggy,
water-logged and soggy.
Make it stop!
This gray is far worse
than a crisp, cool black.
Pull off this blanket
that blocks the sun,
this blanket that
doesn't warm, but chills.
Ever-gray, go away!
Go away, I say!
(It stays.)
11-5-02
Bookmarks
who uses them;
my sons just remember the page;
(that's what they tell me.)
My husband turns over the open book
spine-side up.
( I hate to see books like that, in
such an undignified position.)
But I use bookmarks.
I use lots of bookmarks.
I have 35 in use right now:
long rectangles cut from greeting cards,
store receipts,
pieces of ribbon,
page-a-day calendar pages folded in half,
strips of colored computer paper,
even some torn scraps
of lined notebook paper.
(I must have been in a hurry to use those.
So untidy, so disrespectful)
I have one store-bought bookmark,
pink with fringes.
Two bookmarks are dusty,
I should just remove them.
There are bookmarks to mark passages of interest
and others to show that
I lost interest less than halfway through the book.
But I like to see bookmarks in books.
Bookmarks say,
"Someone is reading me;
I'm not just a shelf ornament."
It's not the bookmarks that are important,
but they have an important job,
serving as little signposts
among the endless pages of print.
I like bookmarks because
I love books.
11-5-02
Job 38:11 "And said, Hitherto shalt thou come,
but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?"
I mean I like the edges:
the seashore, the coastline, the beach.
I do not like those fathomless depths
that lie far past any vestiges of land.
I do not like that vast, dark hole
covered over with water,
that murky, hidden world.
That endless bowl of water
hiding unseen depths
is a different world all together,
a sea world.
We can not be more than visitors
in that strange land;
It is not our world.
I will stick my toe into that world of water,
I will open my ears to the sound of the crashing surf,
I will enjoy the wonder of the changing tides.
But I will stay on the edges.
And I will run away even from those edges
when the ocean rages
against the land.
I fear those proud waves,
those angry, raging waves.
11-5-02
I've sat at this same breakfast window
for over twenty years now, looking at the same trees and fields.
It's comforting.
and watered you,
gave you fertilizer,
watched you grow.
I like to see you
out my window,
my old, familiar friend.
There is stability
in old friends,
shared history and strength,
Even in old,
inanimate friends.
oct. 23, 2002
flew in to fidget;
a spruce tree-topper,
bobbing, shifting from
foot to foot
while gawking all around.
Perched high on the single,
slender-stemmed spruce spire.
It is a gray-dawned morning
and I can't tell his color;
I can't tell why he landed,
perched so precariously,
bobbing so incessantly.
Is he resting or surveying?
Is he...?
He is gone.
10-17-2002
Every time I tried to concentrate
today, I thought instead of scatter-brain images. dogs and leaf piles.
Scented
Tangents
zig-zagging on its leash,
side-tracked by a dozen scents,
bounding after every tangent.
But, where is the path?
How did I get here?
And why I am holding
this slobbery slipper?
woof?
oct. 22, 2002
I raked together
a fine, tall pile
of little gray cells--
But before I could
bag them and tag them
a capricious puff of wind
ran through,
kicking up its heels and
tossing leaves like confetti
with its chubby, white hands.
My brain's been Humpty-Dumptied;
I'm too tired to
rake the pieces together again.
oct. 22, 2002
and grass-green grass,
Gray-green apple leaves,
tawny fields of bent corn stalks,
heads and ears drooping.
Golden brown forest
with one splash of sugar maple;
Blue, blue sky with
gray puffs pushing at it,
compressing the blue;
Blue fighting back;
They struggle all day,
but the sky, ever patient
has the supremacy.
It will be back tomorrow;
the clouds are just passing through.
But they gave the blue sky
something to do,
they gave the blue sky something to prove.
10-19-02
by heavy towels
and no support in the middle;
The wind keeps knocking over
that board with a notch
( the notch is too shallow,
the board too unsteady.)
Plenty wind, not much sun,
heavy towels hanging low,
trying to dry as they just miss the ground,
flapping and pulling that clothesline;
heavy towels, heavy clothesline,
hanging low.
10-19-02
Let's be honest; when you say something like "I wasn't myself today", it is to excuse a less than meritorious behavior or attitude. You mean "I'm usually better than this; you caught me at a bad moment." Perhaps. Or perhaps you were caught at your most honest. Just speaking for myself here.
I was not myself Today
I was gentle;
I was cheerful;
I was kind;
No, I was not myself today
but no one seemed to mind!
10-15-02
Compliment
Fishing
Slack line;
Maybe I tried too hard.
Maybe the fish weren't biting.
(Maybe there aren't any fish
in that pond anymore.)
I did snag an old boot.
Real leather.
Tasted like it, too.
Bleah!
(as Snoopy would say)
Oct. 4, 2002
No sapphire seas,
No purple-headed mountains,
No red-rock canyons.
But we are rich in green,
Indiana green:
Green broadsword cornstalks
with drooping dreadlocks of strawberry blonde;
plush, mottled carpets of
chubby-leafed soybeans;
uncombed, scrubby alfalfa showing too much lavender;
and in every direction,
curly-furred clumps of leftover forest,
supine giants in jerkins of
leafy basswood and hickory,
white oak and sugar maple.
No scenic wonders,
No breath-taking vistas,
But take a deep draught
of that crisp, clean green.
Easy-on-the-eyes,
Indiana green.
July 25, 2002