Patch of Periwinkle

 

Frocked in lavender finery

and dainty necklace of white,

March winds rustle your many emerald petticoats

as you sit in half shadow

beneath an unadorned maple tree,

dispassionately waiting

for the rest of Spring’s recalcitrant guests to arrive.

Treasure

There’s treasure everywhere –

A bird in the house,

apples,

shadow puppets,

the wide window,

blades of grass,

bugs,

the good earth,

the tiny seed,

small ceremonies  –

places I never meant to be.

I Want —

I want children to play upon my grave.

Fragile kites let out on lines held in sticky hands,

Pockets weighty with throwing pebbles;

Ant-army marches across greenest grasses,

Knees drawn high and feet bare

to the first timid days of summer.

Childish voices, noisy and forgetful

of the solemn nature of

life, six feet below the living.

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On Cassatt’s Breakfast in Bed

What are you thinking of, Mother Dear,

as you clasp your cherubic child before

you and gaze off into the distance

between courses of honeyed tea and buttery toast?

The movements of the moon?

Mathematical proofs?

Mycology and mineralogy?

Or the sweet deliciousness of another few minutes of sleep,

so you can dream you live in a world where

mothers are the engineers of their own mornings?

The Language of Bees

Over and over again,

following customary flight patterns;

thoughts flit into my brain.

Buzz, buzz, buzz in your left ear,

I pause midflight;

stung into sudden silence.

Remembering

I need not bother

unless I can translate my busy buzzing

into a language of grunts and uhs and silence.