Announcing April

In the roadside hawthorne top

on a twig between opening leaf wads

a rufus sided towhee throws back it’s head

angles it’s beak wide against gray sky

blasts its musical plastic rattle whistle - 

kddrrrreeeee!...kddrrrreeeee!...kddrrrreeee!

April Afternoon

Green gold west light

slanting across 

stubby pasture grass

across pine slope

under indigo black 

cloud bottoms.

Pruning

I’ve been out in the damp gray

edge-of-freezing morning

with my new red-gripped secateurs

puzzling through pruning the pear tree.  

Up the ladder to look at each twig

down the ladder to look at the whole tree.

Back up the ladder to snip here, snip there.  

One decision after another,

Take it or leave it? This limb or that?  

Take out crossovers, take out verticals,

take the obviously dead, and the worst

of the green and gray lichen crusted.

Try to shape branches for graceful reach

horizontally radiating from the trunk.

Most of the time there is no good choice

on this tree contorted by years of neglect 

and my own early mistakes.   Breath deep.

It doesn't have to be perfect

just take out the congestion

and let light in to the heart.

After Waffles

Purple blueberry syrup smears

in yellow plate’s concentric valleys.

On Being Seduced By the Hebrides

I had not expected to fall so in love

with an Atlantic isle

(being Pacific born, fully invested

in keeping faith with my own ocean.)

But the chartreuse, old gold 

and burnt ochre of the bogs,

the sienna and umber of stony hillocks

the ultramarine ridges beyond,

the indigo wash of overcast and loch

tap deep into my being.

I love the twisting one lane roads

the sheep lying on the verge (not shoulder)

the white two story cottages

with their black roofs,

the red telephone boxes -- 

is the whole blessed country 

a movie set?

And if I’m so affected from my own desk,

by the Street View and Google Earth tour,

what kind of a mess would I be

if I could smell the land, hear the waves

feel the wind, splash across a burn

hear the Gaelic in it’s native air...?

If I could only get there!

Not Much of a Fence

Steel t-post faded to aloe green

pocked with rust

stands, not vertical but 

perpendicular to the slope;

two widely spaced loose 

strands of barbless twisted wire

sag along to staples in a ponderosa 

pine’s puzzle bark.

Grace

Yesterday’s boot tracks

half effaced, softened

rounded by last night’s

new snow.

In the Dishpan

Solitary scarlet mug

surrounded by fine 

white bubbles.

Snow Lab

Eight and a half inches

and still falling, piling up.

Heavy, packable snow.

Snowball, snowman

monster fort snow.

Engineers in pacs and ski pants 

bend over 5-gallon-bucket-

molded snow blocks arguing

packing technique and structure.

Shadow Like

Bits of sunflower hull darken 

a circle of snow below the feeder,

gleaning juncos flit and bob.

Remaining Mysteries

Half way to out to the garage 

with a bag of meat for the freezer 

I hear “To-whee..to-wheedledee!” 

Someone new coming to the feeder?

Kinking my neck, squinting through 

binoculars gets me a few views, 

creamy bellies on high branches 

thick bills and a brush of amber or 

russet on cocked head-top

not enough for identification

and they never do come down 

for seed.  Write them off as  

“Mystery bird. Passing through.” 

and go put the meat away.

Retrospective

In a plastic grocery sack

on the desk I’m trying to clear, 

two red hanging files my mother 

handed me on New Year’s Day.

They turn out to be filled with

all my letters to her from 17 to 51.

Scraps from notebooks, cutesy stationary,

a post card of Yosemite Falls.

I spend half an hour reading 

samples of my younger self, then give up,

sighing and wishing I liked her better.