spring

To continue on last week's theme--and because I haven't had time to write things other than papers for class (and those you don't want to read, trust me). I'm embedding some photos that I took this week. This is the view from my patio doors as a storm was coming in from the south. The trees have been just gorgeous!

Spring!

T.S. Eliot began his famous poem The Waste Land with "April is the cruelest month." When I taught high school, I agreed whole-heartedly as April also played host to the MAP test (Missouri's standardized test--ick). Plus, most Americans dread April because the 15th is tax day (double ick).

Today, however, the sun is shining. It's 75 degrees. I can hear cardinals calling to one another and wrens chirping right along. Even the geese with their intrusive honking don't bother me. How can anyone be uptight or glum or anything bad when a day this beautiful rolls along.

So, though I tried to take my laptop out on the patio to write a little ditty for you today. Apollo on his golden chariot was just too dang bright, making my computer screen look like a vast black hole. My friendly spider, who is still wan from winter's pale days, and I pulled out a book and read in the sun. Ah, spring!

Coupling

Sorry this is a day late (and here I am a dollar short--sorry, couldn't resist), but my sister came to visit this weekend. So, I'm a little preoccupied.

Coupling II

My breakfast is gone when
I notice honking at my patio door.
The geese that live in the complex
have made their daily migration to my abode.
They too seem to be paired,
their white-ringed necks creating hearts in mid-air,
a Hallmark greeting card just outside my door.
Geese mate for life.
Even if separated during annual migrations
they wait--sometimes years--for their partner
to return to the nest.
If one in a pair dies,
the other continues to live--
but not thrive--
for he (or she) does not re-mate.
Flocks have no singles’ groups
whereby unattached geese can find a new beau,
no ladies' night at the local pond.

Watching my flock hunt and peck
through the sparse brown grass under the elm,
I wonder...
Do some geese never find a mate?
Do some just join the thronging vee
hoping this year they'll find that lover
who makes their lives complete,
the one who gets them as none
other in the migratory pattern have?
Are there geese who watch as others find their mate
and yearly hatch their broods of goslings?
What does this single goose think
as her dark head turns grey?
Does she fear dying without notice--
alone, unmourned, easily forgotten?
Does she spend her nights yearning
the warmth of a body curled next to her
in the cold and forbidding darkness?
Does she watch each year pass
and realize the fading hope of meeting "the one"?

Holding my cup of Earl Grey between my hands,
my heart aches for that one soul
slightly apart from the rest,
hunkered, separate, not feeding.
Her bowed head swivels to observe the others.
She, unpaired, is spectator to their lives,
barely an actor within her own.

Coupling

This is part one of a two part poem. Weird as it is to say, I was inspired to write this while chasing my cereal around the bowl one rainy Saturday morning. I noticed that usually when one Cheerio was near another they seemed drawn to each other, like some magnetic force compelled them to one another. There's actually a scientific reason for this. Anyway, my writing group seemed to enjoy the first draft. I've worked on it some since then, so hopefully it's better. :) I'll post part two next Sunday.

Coupling I

How is it some couples seem to naturally pair?
Like the Cheerios in my breakfast bowl
they drift toward one another--
sometimes coasting into crowds
comprised of individual rings
but other times butting up in twos
to cling near the edge of their world.
Rarely do I find that solo Cheerio,
who, by the way, doesn't look so cheery.
Usually softened, maybe slightly misshapen,
he roams all over the ecru
surface of the skim milk,
He may occasionally hook up
with some group of o's,
but not for long.
He'll detach and wander away,
maybe because my spoon has come between
him and the object of his attraction.
Other times, he seems to bounce off
the others, seemingly repulsed,
or maybe he just enjoys his solitude,
his time alone to splash against the tide
of milk or laze away in the bubbles.
I call this lonesome rover "he;"
it could just as easily be "she."
Females can wander,
enjoy time apart from others.

Watching the rings lap lazily
at the sides of my white bowl,
a homogeneous group of like-visioned
individuals, I wonder if a rebel heart
buoys to the surface.
Does one beige cheerio ever long
to escape the green-rimmed white plastic
and dive into a fiesta red dish
bobbing with fruit loops?
Does she ever want to break
the chains holding her to the same place,
visit a wilder atmosphere,
chase a lucky charm?
Or will she eventually give up the dream,
settle in suburbia with the equally bland
but wholesome and slightly square
shredded wheat?
What will she do
before the thought of life
gobbling her up, one bite at a time
drives her to settle?
Or will she give in to self-absorption,
wallow on her own for a while,
and then eventually sink
to the bottom of the bowl?