We waited
consumed with work
climbing the ladder
no time for escapades.
Now, in our winter years
past summer’s torrid heat
we meet on cool chilly nights
sailing into our dreams.
Your gentleness touches me
beneath a black sky lit by stars
until we blossom
in this off-season romance.
Written in response to the DailyPost Photo Challenge to interpret “off season”.
Photo is from Provincetown, Cape Cod. Muse to many a poet and artist.
Spring Harvest
We searched that day
for morels and fiddleheads
no words, no sounds, except the wind.
The rock laden stream followed us
deeper and deeper into wooded fields,
side by side seekers.
Heads bowed, eyes on nature’s floor
suddenly spied the curling greens
and soft brown spongy shapes.
We knelt as one, upon soft damp earth
hands outstretched to pluck the harvest
foretaste of the meal to come,
wild succulent edibles of spring.
Peach juice dripped
indolent rivulets down her wrist,
as she felt the soft blushing
fuzzy peel on her tongue
and tasted its cool sweetness.
So many seaside two-weeks
in this place with you.
This time, different.
crack….crack……crack.
Roused awake, I leave our bed
step outside to the dawn’s cool.
Jetty exposed at low tide
long and hard, a battering table
for the single industrious gull.
It hovers, takes aim, releases
crack……scallop shell hits
unyielding rock. Stays firm.
The gull swoops down,
picks up shell, rises, hovers
and lets go, again and again.
CRACK….success.
Morsel quickly consumed,
wings flare to catch the draft and soar.
I follow its path until chill seeps in
bare feet suddenly cold
high tide’s tangled seaweed nearby.
Back with you, under rumpled sheets
my hand hovers, drops down
rests upon your chest, like yesterday.
And yesterday’s yesterday.
Every day, since that day
I feel your every breath.
Inhale, exhale.
Yes, you are here
with me.
Everyone has a house, but not like 5018.
We took many a long voyage
at that address, sailing the seas
within basement walls.
Grampa was a Swedish immigrant
young idealist and painter by trade.
He sailed across the Atlantic
right into the heart of America.
Years later, he painted the scene.
Ceiling sky cerulean blue
dipped to meet the walls’ horizon
forever brightened by invisible sun.
Gulls soared in place
their cries imagined real
through misshapen clouds
fluffy white, no rain in sight.
Waves rolled with white caps
dabs of paint that never splashed.
Life preserver, hung lifeless
unused and not quite round.
Dry mops swabbed the decks
while lookouts watched for land
till dreaded words Time to go home
drifted down from too real stairs.
We abandoned ship to heed the call
packed into four-door cars
rode through busy honking streets
back to everyday landlocked homes.
Heat, sun, sweat.
Summer, like passion
burns deep.
Drums pulse.
Whistle blasts methodical pace
soon frenetic. Eyes open wide
as Gombeys march
then run, then leap into view.
Vibrant costumed anonymity.
Histories joined
African, British, Native American
collide in exuberant dance.
Speed increases, blurs.
Cacophony of primary colors
whirl, jump high, bend low.
Wordless loud stories
of ancestral slaves.
In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge, how do you illustrate Vivid?
She wondered
as she tapped the frame slightly askew
replaced the dirty coffee mug on his Chilewich placemat
shuffled the mail so her bill was on top
and turned their bathroom faucet handle just enough
to let the water drip in slow motion,
will he know she’s still with him,
not quite yet a fully embodied angel
in that other world?
Written from a writing prompt in my June Challenge Course: write within a constraint, IE a one sentence poem.
Cracked earth craves relief
parched crops crumble, seedlings lost
dust storm disaster.
She was a collector.
Shelves crowded with knick knacks,
salt and pepper shakers, silver spoons
Avon bottles and beanie bags.
National Geographics on every table,
grampa’s pipe still resting
in the Illinois shaped tin ash tray.
And that was just downstairs.
Climbing up the wooden creaking stairs
revealed a musty attic world.
Windows, long sealed shut
looked down on a weed covered yard,
sidewalks where she drew hop scotches.
Cobwebs bruhsed aside,
we found two trunks, rusty latches
opened decades of memories.
Grampa’s morning coat and grey ascot,
folded atop her yellowed wedding dress,
fragile lace-edged mutton sleeves.
A seed pearl hat pin firmly afixed
to a Juliet cap with fragile tulle veil,
so delicate still.
And there, below the clothes,
the small white leather bible,
wrapped in once white supple leather gloves.
The final layer,
a stack of valentines
tied in faded ribbon.
Their loving epitaph etched
in a tombstone seven miles away,
more alive here
in this trunk of memories.
