There’s no meaning in it whatsoever,
Nothing symbolic hidden in this loss.
A future immutable as the past,
This day here at the last, its tragic cost.
Can you know something which is nevermore,
Something impossible for mortal ken?
No wisdom before or since could unpack
The fact that I’ll never see her again.
Driving slow to swim
Through the quicksand rain in my
Underwater car.
Draw the gray blanket
Over the steaming asphalt,
Let the rain come down.
Wash away the crowds
And pour us a brief reprieve,
You rain-laden clouds.
Thousands of gallons
Rushing down furiously,
All spent in an hour.
The heavens open,
A trillion wet fusiliers
Unload their salvo.
Skying through the rain,
Its flaps hypnotizing me,
An ibis in flight.
Florida’s lesson
For the artist: its storms’ re-
And de-crescendos.
He and I wondered,
Where do the butterflies go
When it rains like this.
Luminous master,
How do you view bloody seas
And still see yourself?
Invocation rain,
In hurricanes she dances
Into calm at last.
My lover is learning the local crows.
He's hammered a bowl stand in the earth.
He offers them clean water and he throws
Bread and crackers out upon our yard's dearth.
Just that easily they took advantage,
Not just crows but the woodpeckers as well
As the thrashers and the finches manage
To snatch up a morsel and drink a spell.
But the crows are those who impress us most—
How swiftly on branch or rim they alight,
How they caw abroad to their greater host;
They once brought their own pizza to the site;
Then this—they introduced a younger friend
By feeding them some bread we left for them!
Lovely Loyalty, I'm glad you still laugh;
I'm glad you still hang out with Steve and Wish.
I saw you the other day on the half
Of the pond where laundry's done, and in bliss
Knelt down to give oats and take your picture.
It was here where you and your brothers hatched.
While some have moved on, you've been a fixture;
Today I find you with young Wish attached.
Then other times you're with your brother Norm,
Who seems to have moved next door as it were,
Where the rains cause a small pond to form
Behind that lot. Last time he didn't stir
From his nap, though I did see him out there.
If there weren't cameras I'd stop and stare.
I didn't realize my initial luck
When I returned to the pond to receive
Your greeting, thinking you another duck;
But it was you I dreamed of meeting: Steve!
I didn't see you on my last visit,
And the time before you seemed out of sorts:
You didn't eat; so it is exquisite
Having you run to me with laughs and snorts.
And you too darling George! Having you back,
Creation's refrain shall ever resound
In euphony like the ducklings who track
Mama, squeaking and frolicking around!
Steve and George, thank you for being friendly
And treating the tiny ducklings gently.
I missed the trash day
Once, so in maybe a week
She built her vast house.
From the bin up to the eaves,
Her gossamer mansion stretched.
Oh I have never loved the razor's kiss,
But a sharper childhood's crazed example
Wrote its lessons on adolescent wrists.
I'm what's left after the flames are trampled.
Is it rebirth for those who never lived?
Seemingly this ultimate weapon's curse
Is its dual-edged blade; between the ribs
The killing intellect is reimbursed.
Yet the fire of the mind ever rises.
Ashborn children may have been their own prey,
After so many daily demises
Perhaps falseness's dross was burned away.
I never loved the wounds of my feeling;
I still hate cuts, but I love the healing.
