blue-sky chilly breeze
accentuates bare branches
with starling-shaped leaves
poems
September backyard
sprightly little yellow butterflies
flitter their aërial dance in pairs
through tireless mud dauber paths
and webs sway vacant in the breeze
of poor spiders caught unawares
October-blood
come scarlet leaves and falling light
this time of year — October-blood
runs through the veins of autumn —
slowing heartbeat and longer breaths
shorter daytimes and chilling nights
warm hearts and sanguine thoughts
Stay the night
The moon is always
running away from me
as if she thinks that time
is just a cyclical game
of hide & seek —
She runs and runs
then keeps on running
leaving me to the mystery
of why the nights run short
and the days even shorter
Please, Moon —
just for one night
can’t you sit still
and stay a while
We can have
a midnight tea —
just you and me
we’ll talk all night
and bask in the glow
of your regal beauty
Wax & wane
We may as well make
friends with Change —
the instant the Moon is full
it’s already starting to wane
Doppelgänger
moonlit winter trees
bare branches paint gray shadows
ghostly risen roots
Christmas night
great horned christmas caroling owl
crooning to a nearly full cold moon—
aromatic firewood smoke dancing
with chill desert air and winter stars—
people holidaying with indoor trees
oblivious to nature’s nighttime party
Poetry of spring
Springtime is a poet —
the blue sky its blank page
so vibrant green in rhyme
a different metre for every clime
birds chirping to keep the time
wildflowers yellow, red, purple divine
words dancing on tall blades of grasses
sparkling in the morning dews
no commas the flow keeps buzzing
vernal dashes & blossoming branches
on newly greening verdant trees
refrains whispering in each breeze
butterflies — floating apostrophes
ladybugs dot floral question marks
blissful bees stray stanza to stanza
seeds disperse from verse to verse
continuing a poem that’s never ended
and into summer’s colors is blended
Leaves!
when the leaves fly
float, feather, flutter
off the autumn trees
i am in love with life
Visibility
i can see my breath
iced fog in front of my face
makes bare scenes snowy
Galactic gathering
Standing in a silent still-dark February morning
Cool dewy grass grazes half-bare sandaled feet
Lo! Saturn arrives as Jupiter saddles Sagittarius
Mars burns red near the glowing crescent moon
Serpens slithers against a vaporous galaxy border
Antares winks green and gold, crimson and rust
As Scorpius swings its tail at the southern horizon
Libra starboard and upward of the crowded scene
Balancing askew over the poor impaled lone wolf
Ophiuchus a bystander in the busy celestial show
Precarious
Aging is millions of moments
stacked upon tumbling years
Burning
for love’s rewards we stick our necks out
vulnerability a’pulse, blissful anticipation —
and love kisses our risk and nuzzles our napes
but after a time — short or long or in between —
we lose our heads to his swift sharp guillotine
our foolish blind hearts beat on nonetheless
and carry a torch right up to the inquest