Ghost Yard

A pert yellow forsythia is peeking up
over the fence at my old house,
and the lilac is working on its buds in preparation.
The daffodils have run amok
since I moved across the street,
and the tulips and bluebells have survived their neglect
and still ring the giant maple.

All is neglected there, without a resident gardener.
The new owner tossed the picnic table
onto the iris beds, breaking the bulbs,
(and my heart)  with a single blow.
Not one iris has bloomed the past four springs.

It's a ghost yard, where likely my old wolf dog
still lives, in the green space that was his kingdom.
He must be wondering
where I've gone, why it is that his old home
looks so abandoned,
and why it is taking me so long
to return.

To Make A Long Poem Short

frumforum.com

To make a long poem short
I might abort
a chicken egg
that came before the hen
and wound up on my pen.

I have been barking
at the wrong knee
like a bag upon the cat
let sleeping llamas cry
and drop a golden hammer
on my hat

burn the bridge
between two worlds
Elvis has left
the building flush
and all of the rabbits
are in my head -
they are definitely
not in the bush.

for Bjorn's prompt at dVerse: to play with idioms and metaphors. Judging from the responses, I concur we are all a little fried from our April efforts, LOL, and needed to get a little silly. What would be fun would be for all of us to appear at the same open mic and read them seriously, to see what the response would be. Hee hee.

Final Words

Lisa Barnes photo

On this, the very last day
of interacting with the world,
I need to say, to Mother Nature:
you have been the most wonderful lover.
I will miss feeling the touch 
of your wind on my face,
miss hearing the song of the river,
miss watching the silver dance 
of sunlight on ocean waves.
Thank you for the beauty
with which you have blessed my life.
I will have my caregivers
park me at the window
in my easy chair, so I can still watch 
your unfolding wonders
through the glass.

for Izy's prompt at Real Toads on this last day of poetry month: our final words before losing all communication with the outer world. 

Snapping Dragons in Early May

snapdragons

Outside the castle

on a day as bright as May

a little snapping dragon

toddled my way.

"How do?" I smiled

as I tipped my hat.

And that is all

there was

to that.

Magaly over at Real Toads wanted a plant named after an animal (is a dragon an animal?) and she wanted it short, which suits my available brain cells perfectly. Do go check out the Toads. They have been writing like maniacs all month.

Poetic Justice

When the last bird and human have breathed 
their last gasp,
when the turgid, oil-polluted waters 
grow still and stagnant,
when the last whale has beached, 
died in agony, and decayed,
and not one cricket chirps, not one worm burrows,
when the last fish flops limply at the edge of 
a lake filled with plastic,
when all the plankton in the boiling sea is gone,
when dead cars litter the landscape
and dead air lies like a haze on the horizon,
when nothing moves but an angry hot dry wind
in the few dead brittle ghost trees that still remain
when radioactivity is the only activity left,
then Earth will receive her poetic justice
and begin, slowly, to heal.
One year far in the future, one tiny green sprout
will burst through the earth's surface
and our Mother will slowly begin
to live again.

For Susan's prompt at Mid Week Motif: Justice or Poetic Justice

Where I Come From

364 Christleton

I come from apple orchards and and sweet-scented blossoms, from sweet pea and lilac, a canvas hammock slung under a weeping willow, wet bathing suits hung on the line, that dont have time to dry out before the next swim. I come from lake-scent and marsh grasses, the smell of summer mornings taking me back fifty years to a little cottage on Christleton Avenue. I come from brown hills covered with wild yellow daisies, the smell of sage, songs about tumbling tumbleweed. I come from weeping willow and poplar, and the gentle lapping of baby waves against the shore, from bullrushes and horsetail, that I tried to pick apart when I was not as tall as the green stalks. I come from bike rides past old country farms, as evening falls,  the meadowlark singing its melodic song from the pasture.

I come from a cackling grandma and a twinkling grandpa, shiny dimes tucked into a tiny white envelope, to buy a popsicle and some dubble bubble. I come from a small sleepy orchard town surrounded by mountains, the Big Blue Hills of my childhood, and a lake down the street where the best day was finding a log to bounce up and down  on, when the waves began to dance. 

I come from family visits where the stove never grew cold, pancakes the size of skillets, with brown sugar on top, and strawberry shortcake served to the menfolk in serving bowls, with cackles and great hoots of laughter, Grandpa thumping the salt and pepper shakers, which were never in the right place. 

The Marrs ~ My mother in the middle, back row

Uncle Don, who just passed, on the left, back row

I come from a line of strong women and gallant, devoted men, all the beautiful aunts and uncles with the trademark round Marr eyes, so impossibly glamorous to we freckled awkward children, as the ice tinkled in the glasses, and the stories and laughter filled the happy hours. I come from a little house on Christleton Avenue, that spawned generations of cacklers, and launched us all like little bouncing ships, that came and went from its shores, through the busy years, until, one by one, they came no more.

I come from dates in two-tone '55 Chevys, with guys with slicked back duck tails, who showed up smelling of talcum powder and leather upholstery. We would troll up one side of Bernard Avenue, through City Park, and down the other side, seeing and being seen, then do it all again. 

I come from rose-scent and whisperings on soft summer evenings, in a small town full of rose and lilac dreams, from  all the sad songs of broken promises and heartbreak, whose words would become a prophecy: Blue Velvet, Mr Lonely,  Cryin' Over You, a love of dancing in a girl who rarely got to dance once she was grown, a lover of song who slowly, over the years, forgot to sing.

When I go back to that town, I visit all the beautiful loved ones in the cemetery on the hill., where this week we will lay one more gently down, to join his parents and siblings in Heaven.

I took my flock of ducklings back to this town to nest when they and the world were young and, when the fledglings had flown, I gathered the wind under my wings and made a prodigious leap across the desert, over the mountains, to the edge of the western sea, where the waves had long  been calling me. 

And now I come from ocean roar and pounding waves, galloping into shore like white-maned horses, from sea and sky and scudding clouds, cry of the gull, wing of the eagle, small darting sandpipers, long-legged heron, long sandy beaches stretching to forever, and always and forever, forever and always, the song of the sea, waves advancing and retreating on the shores of my heart.

I am old-growth forest and morning fog, and the moo of the foghorn at Lennard Light, sunrises and sunsets, and the long lope of wolves along the shore as the dusk purples the sand and we take one last lingering look, then turn towards home.

                                                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

for Mary's wonderful prompt at dVerse: to write a poem full of color and sense memory about Where I Come From, the things that shaped me. Interesting, given I returned to my hometown this weekend. Friday night, .there I was , with family, in my home town, in a springtime full of blossoms, listening to the songs of my youth. Wow. My uncle who just passed away , was the last living sibling of my mother. Thankfully his wife, our aunt, is still with us. The original Marr family is now reunited in heaven. 

For Fellow Beings in Nepal

independent.co.uk

We gaze upon you with sober hearts,

since we all are mortal, 

perched on the edge of 

our own tectonic plates,

looking into a future

all unknown

that we cannot foresee.

May all beings find refuge.

May all return to stillness,

security and peace.

I am back, kids, exhausted. The earthquake in Nepal is sobering. Tonight between 6 and 6:30 p.m. daylight saving time, the Power Path School of Shamanism is leading a meditation and invites us to rattle our rattles, drum our drums, light incense and sage and candles, and to envision, under the Himalayas, a grounding and steadying of the land, a return to stillness. 

Day 28