Target Practice

for Tony

Think rifle
think bull's-eye
that's the subject here

The rifle:
the most physically compatible,
precise, advance since bow and arrow

The bull's-eye's nature:
line-of-sight, dead center black,
20 metres to 50

Add ear guards:
a silent world,
all to itself

Breathing stops,
thoughts vanish,
a gentle pull on the trigger

All that there is
involuntary,
a microscopic tremble of arm and hand

Is it Zen,
is it mental,
or more, perhaps other?

The mind's eye touch of target,
chaos free:
an ordinary day

At the waterline

Fundy's cobblestone shore:
granite, quartz, basalt
ground handsize
is smooth and pure

Years by the thousands, millenniums sure,
the bay's eroded jasper, garnet, porphyry
sandstone, feldspar and crystal
the rarer, the more true

Fundy's shore:
a rockhound's tumbler
the salvagers' delight
be it pot warp, driftwood or shell

The prize though
is beach glass
nothing aluminum, plastic or similarly obscene but
beach glass sublime

Beach glass can be red, yellow or blue:
amethyst, amber, and turquoise are rarer:
the gems though are apple to deep green
and the lapis of that sometime  medicine cabinet staple
Phillips' Milk of Magnesia

Gardens

Flowers are a wonder
the garden a delight:
that means the planting
and transplanting,
the weeding and the pruning:
all Epicurian pursuits,
Lucretian counterweights.

Gardening is an art:
a four-dimensional endeavor:
length
breadth
depth
and time.

Gardening is Darwinian warfare:
gardens are at odds with nature:
not the fittest but the select survive.

The garden is an ecosystem:
one intentionally designed:
a faux habitat:
one that should not be:
it has no innate survivability:
no natural resiliency.

Though gardens have their cycles:
without the gardener they would not be.

Prodigies

Prodigies

A peaceful summer evening, mild and clear
ripple clean lake water reflects
a silver still moon, bone bare,
on the shore, black pines and seldom silent popples,
dark cottages, almost shapeless small boats, humps indicative of cars

The children, my grandchildren, sleep
for them sweet dreams come easily,
no tossing, no turning
they are young, bothers fade

I stand outside, paying respects to the visit's first day

It is a day not mine, not really
it went faster than planned
the mark of a visit

I anticipated the visit
now that it's here
I find it most gone

For them, the grandchildren, it lasts
a bit longer, maybe even more

For me time flies
each year seems a moment

For them, the young, an hour's
time enough for most everything, a week
without end

I hear the hoot of an owl
a coyote, coy dog really, barks on the hill
something goes splash

I know time's passing
but tomorrow and tomorrow will come
and the visit will simply/merely have been

Everything passes
What my grandfather's grandfather and
his even before
knew privy
has long turned to ash
even their memories are now long forgot
they are gone and their children's children gone with the wind

When I was a youngster
Europe's wars weren't history
Hitler and Tojo really were there
their armies and navies, what are they now?

I anticipated this visit
now that it's here
I find it most over

It's not my time
It's the children's, the grandchildren
Prodigies

How to learn a turtle

How to learn a turtle

for Curtis and Maggie

How do you learn a turtle?
How do you learn a snake?

Don't look in books
Don't look at pictures

Just pick up one

To learn a turtle
To learn a snake
To really learn in a way that lasts
You must look to where it lives
Watch it there
Study it

Really look to what turtle does
Really look to what snake does
Seek it out
Catch it
Put it in a pen or box or jar
Just for a little bit

Then release turtle
Then release snake
Back where you found it next to some water
Next to some tall grass
And watch it swim away
And watch it slither away
Watch it sink out of sight
Watch it disappear

Why do all this?

To care about turtle
To care about snake
Like nobody else

Every animal has a clock

for Curtis and Maggie


Every animal has a clock

At 7:00 this morning I spied a skunk
Then I spied another
I smelled a third

The first was rabbit-sized
The second too

The self-confident fellows
Suited black and white
Snuffled along in hunt for grubs and bugs

Late summer, early fall is morning skunk time
That's when the fearless creatures come round
They're fearless 'cause what's to their rear
Their spray can last for days

Every animal has a clock
Small birds sing mornings
Cicadas trill afternoons
Crickets chirp at dusk
Katydids saw the night away

Nature's clocks are orderly
Listen for the dove
The loon's cry
Watch for the firefly's dot/dash
The wooly catapillar's guest appearance
Every hour retires some to bring forth more

How many creatures can you find? And when?

A Poem's place in a universe of death

We believe and disbelieve
A hundred times and more
That stones reveal
Time and death are one

Poetry though is the great postponer
The supreme fiction
A moral compass
Freed of television and like encumbrances

Poetry is imagination's twin
The mind's revenge on passing days and years
An immortal partition
It views reality and makes a weak aside

Take it
Build a haunted heaven
A lie
A haven against time where nothing is final
A haven against nature where there is no end