Florida seasons baffle me.
Dead magnolia leaves litter the sidewalk
like tan leather mittens
while white patches of pusley
mimic snow on the grass.
Blue violet Speedwell
hides in the lawn like tiny pansies.
The neighbor's Mimosa tree blossoms.
It's odd to my northern mind
to see flowers in November.
Here in the subtropics,
I am perpetually lost in time.
Category: POETRY
collected poems
-
TIME
-
A SHAME
It would be a shame if controllers went out on strike.
Is it a strike if they're not being paid?
It would be a shame if there was no one to guide
Air Force One back into the country when Trump
returns with his gold crown and Mugunghwa order.
It would be a shame if unpaid essential workers
took a vacation - walked away from security, law and order.
Do we understand essential? Who risks their lives for free?
It would be a shame if Americans decided their President
should stay home when the government is shut down,
if they realized this "Peace Maker's" first obligation is to them.
It would be a shame if we did not see that his promises
have been smoke and mirrors - food prices up, housing up
tariffs and bullying up. Hope down. -
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Seventy-seven Sunset Strip
Snap Snap
Seventy-seven is as new to me
as my first pregnancy.
Morning electrolytes prevent wobbling .
A plethora of drugs and minerals
protect me from moods and migraines.
Arthritis resculpts my hands.
My neck hates holding up my head.
Time takes its toll
but gives its gifts.
Limitations are not prognoses.
Deafness silences my world but
I can still hear the birds sing.
I'm grateful for the quiet.
Subtitles are simpler and silent.
I remember the oddest things
Seventy-seven Sunset Strip
Snap Snap*
* Theme song from 1958 tv show. -
GARDENIAS
My father loved gardenias.
Easter I'd find one by my place at the table
to wear to church.
Their rich smell and leathery leaves
baffled me as a child.
Later I came to love them.
Gardenias bloom today outside my door.
Dad also loved chocolate.
Chocolate hearts and cards
graced our dinner table each Valentine's Day.
My sister found his giant chocolate bar
after he died.
Mom preferred savory things, sausages, cheeses,
the roses that lined our front walk.
Do fathers still give daughters corsages?
We are so casual now even at church.
(Jeans have their place but it's not everywhere.)
I adore men in summer suits.
Women in gossamer dresses.
Girls in smocked pinafores.
We've misplaced our elegance.
-
PORTEND
I saw a death’s head in the clouds
with gaping maw and vacant eyes
this morning as I walked my dog.
I gave up portends long ago
letting drink and daydreams go
to choose instead right here, right now.
But these clouds gave me pause.
Helene passed us headed north
slammed towns and hollows in the hills
displaced the gentle mountain folk.
A hundred people lost their lives
in flooding never seen before
the land I thought I knew so well
became a soaked and battered shell.
This earth no longer seems benign
when storm and fire and flood abound.
Volcanos spew and earthquakes shake
we stand no more on solid ground.
With plastic waste from shore to shore
man’s greed continues wanting more.
Despite earth’s message loud and clear
that she no longer wants us here.
-
ON HER SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY
My sweet girl.
I have watched you grow
blossom, sometimes struggle.
Who would wish adolescence
on anyone they love?
Like childbirth to life,
these years a
necessary albeit
challenging passage
into adulthood.
I remember Buddha you
straight from the womb.
Unafraid of toads you
In your Alexandria backyard.
Baking bagels you in my
Clinton kitchen.
Knitting you trying when
I visited to master the craft.
Teenage you behind your
bedroom door.
I wish you passion
for something to focus
your mind.
Mentors to speak
to as you grow.
Books to warm
and comfort you.
And the sure knowledge
of how much you are
loved.
-
SLEEPING BEAUTY
Tall hedges surround the house.
The long grass has gone to seed.
Fading peonies hide among the weeds.
Only one wicker chair on the porch has a seat.
I knock on the door and wait.
No one answers though their car is in the drive.
I call Anthony on my cell.
“Cindy! Where are you?”
“I’m on your porch.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Time passes.
I sit on the chair and look at the fields
where sheep once roamed.
The chicken house too is still.
No chickens or peacocks strut its yard.
The air smells of country – grass, pines, sunshine.
Anthony opens the door, and we hug.
He is old, his curly hair gone grey and wild.
His smile wide. Julie sits in the kitchen
talking to herself. She smiles when I say hello
not knowing me or why I’m here.
Anthony makes us coffee from Wards in Newark,
a joy we share. He grew up there.
I’ve brought pignolis – cookies his mother
used to make at Christmas.
We chat and drink our coffee.
Julie stands by back door and looks out - still talking.
She brings something in from the hall to
place by her parents’ photos,
a shrine whose people she no longer knows.
Her eyes shine. She smiles.
Before I leave, Anthony shows me his tomato garden.
It’s perfect. Many plants. Orderly rows.
Fenced to avoid predators – his
escape from incontinence, locked cabinets
the constant vigilance that protects his wife.
He is her husband,
her jailor
her Prince. -
BEFORE
Before imperfection
I sought life’s meaning
not knowing the rowing
was it, not the arrival.
Before I became ignorant
I told others what to do
believed I had answers
not knowing even the questions.
Before I became old
I found quiet boring
its slowness a flaw, not knowing
the rowing was all. -
BUBBLE NET
We ignore the bag we live in until it chastens us. Cut or burned, bruised or broken out, it becomes visible, heals like magic. In childhood it’s chicken pox, impetigo, measles. In high school it’s bouquets of pimples and ballooning fever blisters. Perfect skin is edible – who doesn’t desire to gobble a baby or study a youth’s perfection? At 20, I eat my way through Europe and acquire stretch marks. At forty, I notice a crack under my chin. A tiny person seems about to remove the scaffolding. At fifty, laugh lines become crevasses. At 73, I drool over nothing. At 75, the thin flesh of my hands is crinkled, ancient. I bruise without notice. Mapped by veins and arteries, this skin’s a phlebotomist’s delight. It cuts like butter. The chin under my chin resembles a whale’s, creased and ridged for expansion. Perhaps I’ll blow a bubble net and rise through the day eating words.
-
MATTER
Matter persists they say – not just the stain on your favorite sweater or the mole on your arm. Molecules themselves have endless lives in a material soap opera. This week one’s Christ, then Mozart then Charles Manson. That’s what they say. Descartes believed he thought hence he existed – something his laundress and wife doubted not his dirty socks evidence enough. Who would use his atoms next be thoughtful or obtuse a tree, a bird, a slug? I die therefore I live. We’re each on loan from earth’s library one size fits all pretty or dull, fast or slow joyful or sad. Cinderellas headed to the ball when the clock strikes twelve, we become someone else. Relentlessly frugal earth wastes nothing in its global recycling. So too must the light which animates us continue its journey becoming the sparkle in other eyes or the ache in another's heart.
A WELL TRAVELED HEART 