calendar days

Sprinklers go on and off, not turned on by human hands.

I watch from the window,
mourn a summer not yet gone
by calendar days.

Tiny birds travel about, low to the ground, enjoying the machinery
that has allowed them rain.
They fly to and fro.

I never bought the pansies or the impatiens 

for our balcony ledge,  

and it is too early for pumpkins.

Geese left loudly - four nights ago.

Last night, we heard the crickets, 

thought it was water running somewhere,

did not recognize the sound:
an air conditioner had drowned out all summer long.

It's too soon,
It's still August,
I still have beach days left in me.
(I think silently to the chattering birds.)

But they don't care. 

They are happy in their man made rain.

From the Rain

Trees heavy with rain speak to me
of the beauty of wet leaves

a lone crow breaks the silence
I wonder how he feels about the rain
that patters silently on the balcony
and makes the earth wet

I stay inside "safe" from the rain
as the nature I see outside
glories in it.

Rain Poems

The Rain by Robert Creeley

    All night the sound had
    come back again,
    and again falls
   this quite, persistent rain.

   What am I to myself
    that must be remembered,
    insisted upon
    so often? Is it

   that never the ease,
   even the hardness,
   of rain falling
   will have for me

   something other than this,
   something not so insistent--
   am I to be locked in this
   final uneasiness.

   Love, if you love me,
   lie next to me.
   Be for me, like rain,
   the getting out

  of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
  lust of intentional indifference.
  Be wet
  with a decent happiness.

Song For The Rainy Season by Elizabeth Bishop

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

In a dim age
of water
the brook sings loud
from a rib cage
of giant fern; vapor
climbs up the thick growth
effortlessly, turns back,
holding them both,
house and rock,
in a private cloud.

At night, on the roof,
blind drops crawl
and the ordinary brown
owl gives us proof
he can count:
five times--always five--
he stamps and takes off
after the fat frogs that,
shrilling for love,
clamber and mount.

House, open house
to the white dew
and the milk-white sunrise
kind to the eyes,
to membership
of silver fish, mouse,
bookworms,
big moths; with a wall
for the mildew's
ignorant map;

darkened and tarnished
by the warm touch
of the warm breath,
maculate, cherished;
rejoice! For a later
era will differ.
(O difference that kills
or intimidates, much
of all our small shadowy
life!) Without water

the great rock will stare
unmagnetized, bare,
no longer wearing
rainbows or rain,
the forgiving air
and the high fog gone;
the owls will move on
and the several
waterfalls shrivel
in the steady sun.

Morning Rain by Tu Fu

A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light.
I hear it among treetop leaves before mist
Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and,
Windblown, follows clouds away. Deepened

Colors grace thatch homes for a moment.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten
Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across
Half a mountain -- and lingers on past noon.

Spring Bliss

Some trees blossom with beautiful vibrant flowers every Spring,
It can happen overnight. One day the trees display themselves bare and gray,
reaching towards a similar gray sky, one can feel winter’s sting-
colorless and still, a sky and a tree, a seemingly sad despondent way to pray.

A watcher can get deceived, entrenched in his or her own mind trap
watching trees caught in winter, thinking life has stopped -like the hardened dirt.
The earth has buried life, for protection with a warm woolen cap,
covered it with a hard dark shell, yet at the same time, left itself bare, and inert.

But listen, an inert prayer always has the universe’s attention,
can answer quietly with the first smell of spring, that is easy to miss.
Flowers bloom, leaves bud, the air shifts - offering a new sensation.
It can happen overnight: a welcoming Crocus, a green view,  a momentary sense of bliss.

The Easel

It is empty of paint and brushes.
It stands neglected in the cellar.
It stands in a corner.
I sit on the couch.

I sit and watch.
I plan to pain.
The paints though are upstairs.
I sit and watch.

Its three legs stand,
as my two legs sit.
The empty canvas is white
and the television which is on is bright
and easy.

The people talk
as my mind thinks,
regrets,
and my two legs sit.

I sit and I watch
as I plan to paint,
but the paints are upstairs
and so is my bed.

My daughter's first poem

I Like Angels


Angel   I I I I
Nice
Apple picking
Sand who angels like it
Tape things that are broken
Ants march
Sunshine Day she like the sun smile at her
Icecream, she likes vanilla icecream
Angel's name is Anastasia

inadequate letters

There are no letters
that can represent any sound
cant put them together
in small words
to show
the wind rustling through the trees.

A bird can be heard
that sounds raspy
R..A...S...P..Y...?
Those letters and their sounds are not
quite right.

A child turning a wind up toy-
cranking?
Crank, craank, craaank,
but no
not right again.

A lawnmower is enters the setting.

It is far away, unseen,
a coming and going sound
machinelike EEER EEEEEER
ER EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRR
EER   ER
coming and going
loud and soft
like a mosquito that moves to and from your ear.

The whooooossshhhhh of the trees.
The rrruuusssshhh of the leaves.

Eeeee ee eeee
twit  twit    twit
(or is it tiwt tiwt?)
(or toorwhit tooowhit torwittt?)
and twee tweee twee tweeeeeeeee
twee -
so many birds, so many sounds-
inadequate letters.

The lawnmower is reminiscent-
sounds like a child's toy.

The ROAR of a passing plane,
The CLINK of their dog's chain,
the Dog's bark,
BARK? WROOF?
Inside, a phone RINGS.

The CREAEAK of the door
that opens, and a human enters the outside world
with words, " I wanted to show you this"
plastering graffiti on nature's wall.