The Fifth Season

Today Marissa told me 

About the fifth season
Wedged between summer and fall

A time of transition 
From the peak of what has been
To the plinth of what’s to come 

The red leaf hibiscus
Has fully opened

As have I, I'm afraid

And the dahlias stand

In the wings awaiting

Their cue

Summer Bedraggled

 Now is around time

Summer begins to feel

A little bedraggled

Drought has taken hold of the lawn

The lilies look haggard

Dust hangs thick in the air

Though the crickets don’t seem to care

While I’m sitting here patiently waiting

For the hibiscus to bloom

Running Again

Lately I've begun

Running under a power

Other than my own

Not to be cheeky but

I'm not sure whose it is

With windbreaks and all

A continuous flow yet

Ultimately heliotropic

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Today I went running for the first time in a while, in my new birthday sneakers. Once I hit stride, this poem came along and I stopped briefly to write it down.

Smultronställe

Glad I didn’t pull the three leafed plants that began spreading along the east side of the house. At first I thought it might be poison ivy but several more weeks growth has revealed a patch of wild strawberries - someday soon a lucky box turtle’s feast.

See also Ode to My Smultronställe  

Spring Synethesia

This has been a year

Of extended blooms 

And profuse meanings 

Spring synesthesia

Everywhere abounds

Daffodils for three weeks

Straight and the magnolia 

Still in all its glory 

While just now the cherry tree

Has let loose its charms

***********

I ran into our neighbor Alicia today who is the incoming president of our local garden club. She confirmed my suspicion that the cool and damp weather this April has gifted us with extended blooms, from one end of the garden to the other, it's like a florist's cold storage out there, and what's good for the flowers must also be good for the bees, who are already back in business, the hives roaring back to life.  Photo by @marrisabridge.

The Science of Poetry

Haiku is amber

That traps a moment of breath

Nothing more or less

It's taken more than a decade of field work for me to begin appreciating the science that underlies and animates poetry. A haiku starts as a frequency that is transmitted from some small corner of the universe. It's a burst of electromagnetic energy that travels through air just like a radio signal. To the poet it may feel like a little work of wonder if that signal can be received and recorded faithfully, without the slightest slip of the lip or wrist.  In any case, the mind of the poet works best in a limited fashion, first as a receiver and then a re-transmitter of the signal, without any need to author or create the truth that resides inside the poem.

A Spring Like None Other

There's no spring other

Than the present one vividly

Rushing back to life

There's no time for regrets

About things left undone

There are only seeds to be sown

And always more shoveling

And to make the most 

Of these daylight hours

You must extend yourself too

A little further every day 

That's what a growing      

Season is all about

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These days I don't write many poems. But there's an April exception. The older I get the more I love spring, so every once in a while, like an unfolding blossom, a new April poem bursts into view.

Mind you, age has taken its toll and now that I'm well into my sixties there's a noticeable difference in how I respond to spring's magic spell. A decade ago, when I first started writing poems, I felt swept up enough to write a poem every day for the month of April. (You can read those poems here, on the Lampoetry blog, in reverse chronological order.) Now I don’t have the stamina to sustain that sort of output, so this poem, short and sweet as it is, will have to suffice.

Marissa took this picture the other day, which I think sums up anything else I might have to say.