Telltale

Side-plastered tree trunks tell 

which way the wind blew the falling snow.

Laundry Lines

I give the green towel a 

whip S N A P!

to stand the pile up and 

shake out wrinkles 

before I hang it on the drying rack.

Whip S N A P!

I’m six years old watching my mother 

hang laundry on the outdoor line

handing her coil spring clothes pins --

was it just a 1960s housewife thing

or was she, too, coping with a broken dryer?

Sun After Snow

The eleven year old boy 

points across the pasture

“It looks like some girl 

came and poured glitter all over it!”

Greener Grass

I need nothing.

There sits my car, tank full

but I’ve no need to go out --

luxurious!

Understand;

this is a thing of choosing --

next moment I may be as discontented

as any fence-side cow.

Notice

Halfway home on the forest trail 

I notice that I’m walking blind,

everything I’m noticing is in my head.

He said..., She said..., They’ll think....

Breathe!  Be here!  Be now!

Notice the robins bursting aloft.

Notice the bare frozen slope.

Windy

Clots of cumulous bluster eastward 

pulling apart like unspun wool opening 

blue eyes, remass, close ranks, open over there

and there.  Pines twist and sway, think

about picking up their roots and waltzing

over the ridge after them.

Mumbling Kettle

The mumbling of the teakettle

keeping warm on the back burner,

ticking of the cast iron frying pan 

heating on the front burner.