Month: September 2025

Blue jay, hi! Blue jay, ho!

Blue jay, hi! Blue jay, ho!
Springing from each angled bough,
  Fluttering aground,
    Pulled aloft like a puppet
  Back up to the browned
    Bower barely above it.
Blue jay high, blue jay low!

One goodbye, one hello;
Wondering time, watch its tow.
  See it standing still?
    On the first of diversions
  Seasons start to spill;
    Lead our lovely excursions
Blue jay, hi! Blue jay, ho!

Blue I sigh, feeling slow
And inert. How to go
  Where I want to be,
    (And where is that exactly?)
  More than merely me,
    Maybe. It depends on who's asking—
Then at once: blue jay, yo!

Every day marvels show
Beauty's spark flash in both
  Beings grandiose
    And the commonplace creatures;
  Perhaps I learn the most
    From these humblest of teachers.
I get high, I lay low.

You, my love, you are so
Blue, but know that although
  Sometimes we must lay 
    In the valleys and doldrums,
  Always comes the day.
    Who knows when we'll behold some
Blue jay high, blue jay low!

If I can’t give you anything

If I can't give you anything,
I'll at least hold while you take 
It yourself, and such entering
Can be what you need to wake
From the isolation of dreams
Which grip your soul with ideals
Life falls short of. Time unseals
Each formula throughout our schemes
And efforts; through our aspirations,
Which you say I lack, but there's one:
Meeting in those special translations
Where I become the earth below
And you come down like heaven's sun
To share inside all things aglow.

Date Checking

When a delver reads the bones,
They wind from the extremities
Like turning over a stone,
Knapping toward the centerpiece.
The rites hold puzzles in their hunt:
To rearrange the years on their track.
Often the first must go to the back
And the last be brought up front.
The calendar's order is traced
To right shelves in their proper season,
Ostensibly preventing waste.
Donating what's least unfresh is righteous,
Though we know the real reason:
Insurance claims and tax write-offs.

Expiration Dates

I check the first one and I check
The final one; if they're the same
It takes little time to inspect
The others, they're out of the game.
Often we see dates far ahead
Or dates looming, just vaguely near.
Many times it's this very year,
But also there are dates long dead
Which our auguries discover.
Old pharmaka now poisonous,
Lying in wait, danger smothered
Among others where what's transpired 
Few notice in a choice amiss.
Prophecies of our goods expired.

AC Issues

I'm so sorry the AC bit the dust.
Hopefully it's just a water buildup,
Though I fear we may have abused the gust-
Inducer which perhaps may be filled up
From overuse. And you stayed up so late
Washing clothes and towels, all for my sake;
For your help the world sees it fit to bake
You in your own home. As always, your fate
To be left behind while I go to work,
Which in this heat seems rather an escape.
I pray the trio of fans is enough
To lessen the burden of the heat's drape
Upon the sweaty bed of comfort's spite.
With luck, by evening it won't be so rough,
Dad's shop-vac could have it working tonight.

Pre-history

I wonder what it's like to love 
In days history never saw,
To feel without our terms to glove
Emotions impossibly raw
And unrefined. If I should draw
On a letterless connection,
What would be its intimate law?
A look, a subtle detection,
A smile's tender introspection—
Those feelings which birth deep inside
A spirit's true genuflection.
Even before a word was tried,
A submission was made, a prayer 
To feel a touch lighter than air.