Flowers rewrite soil, rain, and sunshine into petal’d poetry.
nature
Seed in the wind
flowers are fragrant metaphors —
happy colors sing “carpe diem!”
wilting whispers “memento mori.”
Ever-changing
Why do I love clouds? You can’t save a cloud as you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock — clouds are now! Clouds are the carpe diem of nature.
Autumn’s wake
leaves dancing
in a brisk breeze
on an almost-bare tree
joyous at autumn’s wake
they tremble, ready
to be free, to sleep
with past seasons —
dying, they celebrate
the awakening of winter
Spring flight & grounding
Butterflies dot springtime with flitting airy kisses.
Barely knowing
Spring and summer come with a lush layer of foliage over reality, but when things start falling away in the autumn and get bare and stark in the winter we’re forced to look at things more as they really are, including ourselves.
Wilderness pathways
“The wilderness has the power to exert enormous influence on the mind of a man freshly arrived from civilization, especially if he lives alone and has but little contact with other people; some that I have known could not take the solitude, the absence of comfort and reassurance offered by the presence of other humans.
“Such men have become effete in terms of personal survival in the face of natural challenges, the city is too much with them, and they don’t last. There are also those who go too far the other way, becoming misanthropes… these are the withdrawers, and they are found sprinkled loosely wherever there is a forest or a jungle, like seeds that have lost the ability to germinate in cultivated soil.
“But between the quitters and the lone stayers, there is a third kind — indeed, there may be more than that, for all I know — in whom the wilderness acts as a catalyst and who, after they have experienced both the wild and the civilized, begin to form new values, to explore unknown pathways, and to realize that nature is an endlessly patient teacher with an infinite capacity to stimulate thought and to sharpen the hunger for knowledge. That is how the wilderness affected me…”
—R. D. Lawrence (1921–2003), The North Runner, 1979
Desert winter departing
early February in the desert —
the sun is springtime warmth
the breeze, winter’s leftovers
Muted striations
sand-dust with cream
intensely mauve’d rust
velvety blue-grey-indigo —
layers of early winter’s
desert dawn horizon
Fresh & green
Our bodies run on the fresh green fuel of the land.
Blend & blur
late winter and early spring blend and blur
in pleasant days and chilly nights
penetrating sun and gentle cool breezes
with stirrings of life, subtle and green —
mornings that light ever earlier rouse us, but
sunsets that still come in evening’s youth lull
O! Nature
Nature —
exquisite beauty and elegance
antique yet fresh
blackout poetry created from “Pericles,” Plutarch’s Lives, Dryden’s 1859 Clough translation
Entranced
autumn leaves rustle
the tension out of me
on pleasant breezy days
sunlit gentle tree, i am
a ragdoll under your sway