Smooth

Smooth

Smooze (smooch?) (smooge?)

Smooch

Snooze

     -long, double “O” sound–

Snore, Snort

Snicker, Snigger

     - “s”“n” “sn” together sound

            “sn . . .”

                   soft and hard back to back

                          oxymoron -

Snail

Snot

     - snail snot?

Sneaky

Sneak

Sneakers

Sneer

Sneeze

Sneezy 

     - a dwarf, 1 of 7

Snide

Sniff, Sniffle

Snifter 

     – brandy snifter

Snip

Snipe, snipe at

Snack

Snap, snappy, snip-snap,

Snake

Snare

Snarl

     - snared snake snarled?

Snitch

Snob, snobbish, snobby

Snow - slow

Snood

Snoop

Snoot

     - snooty snoot

Snout

Snorkel

     - snorkel snout

          -out, out, damn snout

Snub, snubby, snubbier

     - to snub

Snuff –‘s ‘nuff?

Snuffle, sniffle

Snug – snug as a bug in a rug

Snuggle!

     -- Smooth! --

Two Short Poems

Late August

Late August is tinged with autumn,

summer’s green fading into gold and red,

and the days growing shorter, ending

starlit in a celestial darkness.

---

Nurtured

Delicate blossoms bloom in toughened earth, rain-fed,

kissed by the morning’s breeze gently blowing.

The Turtle

It’s a long way across the road,

so he stops halfway, this turtle does,

where a yellow line would be, if this

weren’t an old backcountry road leading

nowhere important, just home at the end

of the day, or a short jaunt to town,

but it’s dangerous just lying there, as he is,

resting, or perhaps sunning himself,

his plastron warm against the pavement,

his hard shell reflecting the afternoon sun.

It’s dangerous, though, exposed like this, vulnerable

to a hungry coyote or the local boys mean

in their late season’s boredom needing relief,

or the summer folk rushing by to catch

the long days left of summer, too soon fading

into autumn’s colors and falling leaves,

their SUVs laden down for the weekend’s escape,

focused too far to see him lying there, resting and still.

So we stop, pulling onto the slate that joins

the road to the lake below, to hoist him up

from behind, carefully held at arm’s length.

He just pulls himself into himself, secure in his shell,

as we carry him safely to the water’s edge,

his destination, this ancient creature,

still alive by his own good fortune,

and us who share this lake we both call home.

On A Clear Night

On a clear night, when the moon is full

and the wind has ceased her play among the tree tops,

has stopped the whoosh and clack of branches waving,

stilled the loud cries on these hushed nights,

all is quiet, save for the crickets’ click

and the tree frogs’ peeping, soft and distant.

So we stop ourselves and listen to this silence

that surrounds us, takes us in, warms us here.

Our heartbeats begin to settle, our loud pulses

softened, now, to a gentle stillness, and our unstrained

ears adjust to the quiet, like a radar directed,

tweaked to distant stars and faint pulsars;

and in that silence settling around us,

an owl hoots, his deep, guttural rumbling calling out

from the darkness, a darkness intensified

by the stillness, by the clearness of this night.

And quieted ourselves, we are reminded where we are,

gone now from the city’s glaring lights,

an artificial glow that blinds us to the dark,

and away from the city’s sounds, the blaring noise,

a cacophonous racket of the street lights’ buzz

and the whine of engines racing, wheels spinning,

hastening forward, faster and faster, our lives

speeding up and speeding by and leaving us behind

on a night obscured by glaring lights and blaring noise.

The night’s stillness there is vacant, an absence,

something taken, stolen from us who need

to hear the deep rumble of an owl, calling out,

a reminder of who we are and leading us home.

Summer Rain

I.

The soft sound of a summer rain
      falling on the leaves 
            that surround my hearth
is the sound of a gentle breeze breathing, 
      the strings of a Canon 
            by Pachelbel, softly played.

II.

But the summer rain, that night, turned fierce, 
      a crescendo accompanied by thunder, 
            lightening charged, thundering the earth 
with the force of a night on a bald-top mountain, 
      dark and frenzied, winged demons let loose, 
            giving way in morning’s light to a new day, 
                  hot and humid, a rose sunshine 
                        in a blue sky rising, returning.