Stitch or Dibble?

I have  sewing I want to do

yardage bought, pattern tested

but the world has gone all

sunny balmy -

last chance to prune the pear

and the green house is warm,

I have sowing I want to do.

Lick It Quick!

Cool drip slips 

down the back of my little finger

maple syrup slithering 

off a toasted, buttered croissant 

eyes-closed delicious.

Counter Still Life

Red-lidded gallon jar with a 

snow of fine flour on 

the clear glass shoulder,

lump of shining dough

lying in scattered flour,

scarred maple rolling pin

with one handle frozen up.

Tonight's Moon

Tonight’s moon -

Shallow white rice bowl

on black velvet.

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.