Saturday, July 30, 2011

Popular Poppies

A dozen breadseed poppies
blossoms pink and lavender
amid the blue green foliage and 
bumpy round unripe seedpods.
At the center of each blossom 
a fat chartreuse button
wears an Elizabethan ruff of 
creamy stamens buzzing
with two or three, or even four, 
golden honey bees per flower.

Friday, July 29, 2011

View from the Hammock

Clouds of elderberry blossoms,
creamy sun splashed tops
lemony shadowed undersides,
against bright cerulean sky.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Khon

Orange day lilies arc 
like traditional Thai dancers
before purple robed petunia courtiers.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Plan Bee

“Oh!  There is a bumblebee on the floor!”
She slides it onto a plastic gift card,
and covers it with a juice glass.
Six legs wave weakly in the air,
she tips the glass, tumbles the bee upright,
it lists sideways, a foreleg raised wardingly
and buzzes feebly, one wing barely moving.
“I wonder if the cats got it.
Should I just put it out of it’s misery?”
“Can you?   I couldn’t.”
“I’ll just take it outside.”
“Wait.”  I squeeze out a glob of honey. 
The bee is oblivious with exhaustion.
She maneuvers it to face the amber bump - 
a long proboscis lunges into the sweetness, 
frantically pumps up the ready nourishment.
We gather round exclaiming, peering, 
running for magnifiers (which don’t help much)
and then she takes the bee in it’s prison
to the picnic table and sets the glass aside.
An hour later, there is only the sticky card.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Other Side of the Fence

The white blanket appaloosa stallion
stands at the fence nearest the green pasture
where the mares and foals graze amid daisies.
His head droops, tail swishes periodically,
eventually he turns and plods to the far 
corner of the trammeled bare corral. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

Cool Summer Greenhouse

A mossy archipelago is emerging
on the sepia sea of dirt floor
islands of bright apple green bounded
along their fjorded coastlines
by graduations of olive and marine.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Eggsperimenting

Teaching the ten year old 
to separate eggs 
we decided to experiment with 
the spaghetti server.
It is a failure - 
the yolk is safely cupped 
while the glistening white 
hangs grotesquely from the holes 
and metal fingers but 
never lets go -
he fizzes with laughter, 
“It looks so cool!”

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Honey Hero

The plastic bear is up to his neck again 
in dark amber sweet viscosity.
He wears his pointed blue cap smartly
but hunches noticeably to the left
his right shoulder and ear lobe gone
lost in a microwave incident,
and he leans unnaturally far forward 
his feet shrunken toward his belly
from simmering angled in hot water,
honorable scars received in the line of duty
in the War on Crystallization.


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Monday, July 18, 2011

Ripping out pigweed, johnny-jump-up, dandelion,
spiders and beetles scurry every direction -
this is their rainforest I’m devastating.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Cooling ginger tea tingles 
along the side edges, 
on the bottom tip of my tongue.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Midnight on the Porch

Among the purring shadows
two tiny dark spots waddle - 
Apples has brought her kittens! 

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Another Rescue

All night the rain pattered whispering,
weighting the foliage like snowfall
flattening tall grasses in herringbone 
bending lilac boughs to kiss the ground.
Young son ventures through the drops half-clad
to save the towering foxgloves spires
gently shaking each precious stalk
releasing a fresh and horizontal shower.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Summer Rain

Air ion fragrant, garden laden, forest kissed
cool-warm drops blessing face, hands, bare toes.
Hallelujah for the pillow and book on the swing
that the leaf pattering dared me to rescue!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Ladybird Mystery

Translucent amber dotted in black
the convex teardrop carapace 
lies abandoned on cool tile.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Oak Table Still Life

Broad daisies and airy buttercups
carried up from the creekside pasture,
their stems thrust into a canning jar,
nod above a yellow soup plate
mounded with bright red cherries.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Creekside #2

Whirring to a sunlit sandbar alder
cedar waxwing flashes a short square tail 
tipped in brilliant Super Cub yellow.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Creekside

Green-veiled, the afternoon sun 
shines through aspen crowns,
a harried cedar waxwing
provisions a pair of gibbering
fluttering fledglings in silhouette.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Flashback

A powerplant’s song drops a tone, 
overhead I spot the single engine plane -
for a moment I feel my palm, last three fingers 
and thumb wrapped around the throttle knob
index finger pointing along the shaft
finger tip braced against the panel
to calibrate the adjustment,
easing the power out just a tad,
the vibration of engine and prop
all around and through me.



Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Breakfast culminates in 
the alpine strawberry bed
a handful of sun warmed rubies 
bursting sweet tart 
between tongue and roof of mouth.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Curled on the garden swing
under the pear and elderberry
absorbed in the third volume -
the leaf teasing breeze
sounds like pages flipping.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Small Talk

At the top of a silvered utility pole
riddled with woodpecker holes
and vertical splits is a foot long stick
bolted upright to the side and
crowned by a brown ceramic insulator.
A third of the way down the pole
two red-capped downy woodpeckers
“kerChup, kerChup, kerChup!” at each other
Are they quarreling?  Trading gossip?
Or like us are they proclaiming 
“I’m alive!  So are you!”

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Kerscritch, a page turns.
Shrunch... shhloouuurp!
Ten year old, garden swing,
fruitsicle, Garfield book.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Choosing Earrings

Pure shining silver cones 
hung from curves of silver wire
long slender plumb-bobs
resonating carpentry, cartography, 
compass roses, sundial rays 
straightforwardness, true purpose
and the golden age of flight.