Spring Cleaning

Spring-cleaning the basement, I found a moving-box,

empty but for a scrap of paper trapped under the fold,

a paper trapped and stuck fast by time.

I almost missed it in my cleaning frenzy,

pitching paper and parcel into the trash bin

brought down from the kitchen for just that purpose,

to rid myself of the stuff collecting in the basement of my life,

stuff taking up space I needed for no other reason

than to fill it up again, a recycling, of sorts.

But here in an otherwise empty box, a box

I wonder why I’d left there empty, I found

a single scrap of paper, faded, yellowed,

barely visible sticking out from under the flap

that had trapped it, forced it flat, held it down,

only a small strip of yellowed paper exerting itself,

making itself known, crying out for rescue.

Reaching in, I pried it loose, careful not to tear it,

as it resisted, unsure as I was of these hands

bent on destructive springtime cleaning,

hands that might easily tear it, trash it,

rip and mangle and pitch it destroyed into the kitchen

bin brought down to rid me of these useless scraps.

It came unstuck, untrapped from the folded cardboard now,

and the writing on it stood out bold, a child’s handwriting,

carefully carved letters and words written in blue,

not the faded blue of a pen, but the brilliant blue

of a blueberry-blue marker, scented, her favorite,

the words still fresh, preserved between the cardboard

folds all these years, saved perhaps for today, cleaning day,

as a rose is pressed between the pages of a book,

all these years since I’d sent her crying to her room

and sent her into the world against me.

Those words in blueberry blue still sting me today

as they’d stung me then: “I’m sorry!”

I was sorry, too, sorry for my anger

at some childish discovery I didn’t want to share,

had not time to share, no patience to share,

but struck out at her, the flat of my palm

on her flesh and the tears and the slamming doors

and this note scrawled in blueberry blue,

a reminder freed now from the folds of a box.

I’d forgotten that note as I’d forgotten our pain,

      her pain at my anger,

      my pain at her forgiveness,

      our pain slipping away,

      preserved in a cardboard box,

      a cardboard box at cleaning time.

Intrusion

Looking for adventure in the wilderness,

the wild that drives us, I am driven to the head

of the lake and turn the bow of my canoe westward there,

the distant shore distantly visible and veiled,

a misty fog lifting, gathering the light, a stage lit.

My old ash paddle, dipping, dripping, a rippling wake

trailing behind, guides me beyond my old weathered

dock, dry and splint’ring in the passing years’

wear and tear of sun and water, extending into the lake.

Here, the water is smooth and the hush of my craft quiet

as it breaks the surface tension, restoring itself behind me

as I move onward, passing now a lone birch that hangs

over Hebron’s edge, lower and lower, year after year,

its leaves just touching the water, tickling it, perhaps,

a child’s soft whisper against my ear, barely heard.

And skirting the last of civilization’s cabins,

I leave behind these summer homes, their chainsaw noise,

and children, swimming, laughing, playing, their toys

scattered, and dogs barking, men, too, barking out to their

broods too eager to listen in the summer heat and freedom.

Just past this last domain, a groomed domicile of lawn

and fresh paint, boats neatly tied and anchored, lies

a cabin shell collapsed upon itself, broken glass and

humanities’ relics rusting, resting – remembering, perhaps,

- one last reminder of our impermanence here where we live

subject to nature’s elements of earth and air, fire and ice,

the seasons turning, spring to summer, autumn to winter.

The shoreline now bends around an unseen cove, revealing

where the wild returns, nature reclaiming itself

with thickening brush and trees grown together, dense,

blocking the sun and my view beyond, a lily pad carpet,

and an osprey’s cry, Red Wing’s flash and the splash

of frogs, water transformed from winter’s stream

rushing to summer’s lake and autumn’s marsh, slowed down.

Below, the rocks lie hidden and flat in the shallows

and caress my keel, a soft thump, or they rise up,

these low mountains of stone, boulders centuries old

lapped by the gentle waves wind-stirred in a breeze

picking up with the sun’s rising higher behind me, warming me.

Suspended, too, in the depth, trout and perch and bass,

where salmon spawned once before, a lake gone fallow,

over-fished and choked by men eager for escape,

answering nature’s call in the noise and oil of modern boats, 
leaking gas, exhaust, and waste and trash discarded too freely.

Port side, now, an expanse of water, rippled and ridged,

an eagle calling, circling, and a loon, white and black,

be-speckled wings, lifts his head and breaks the silence

of the morning, his lonely cry warbling, echo’d from a far off

shore, reminding me of my intrusion, a stern warning

before he slips below the surface and is gone

but for the circles left in his leaving;

what remains is the silence, a hushed hint of a breeze blowing,

what I came for, what we come for, this wild that calls us,

calling us to the head of the lake, again and again, to remind us

who we are and where we belong, here, intruders

allowed to share this space, to glimpse the wilderness

that lies within us, distantly visible and veiled.

Smooth

( a fun list poem I wrote years ago - "but what does it mean?")

Smooth

Smooch

Smooze (smooch?) (smooge?)

Snooze

      -a 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! --

One Voice

On September’s tragedy and caught unaware,

we sang of a blessing on America, standing

together on the steps of the Capital and

in our schools and churches and any place

we gathered to mourn and to console, promising

not revenge but a united America, standing

tall and proud and strong, our hands joined

and our hearts, our voices, too, raised in one voice,

one heart, one solitary spirit, one America.

And time passes, stagnates perhaps, stuck

in that moment of hatred still lingering, evolving

and morphing into a new hatred turned to anger,

a new us against them, whoever is us,

whoever is them, a pettiness about our differences

of skin color and faith and political parties,

of social status and wealth, power and fears,

of our perceptions of the ideologies that bind us

together, one nation indivisible, liberty and justice,

self-evident truths. And I wonder what it will take,

as before, to raise again that one voice in song,

and how many more must die, tragically, praised

as heroes, yet their lives lost and the futures

they might have had, we might have had, gone

in our vanity, in our pettiness, forgetting

September 11 and what we stand for,

what we stood for, our voices raised in song,

the promise of a blessing that did not last:

one nation under God, indivisible.

Flowers in the Garden

I don’t really know my flowers,

just a name on the tag at the garden center

where I bought them, bee balm and cat mint, and some-

thing else, red flowers, Phlox(?), maybe (?), perhaps,

and hyacinth, pink and white, because I wanted

some color among the trees to attract the bees,

do my part for hearth and home and nature’s way,

the beauty of God’s green earth, save the environment,

etc.; at least that’s what I told everyone.

In reality, I just wanted their beauty for myself,

selfishly, something beautiful in my own life.

So I planted them per the instructions and watered them,

good soil and fertilizer, partial sun, and saw them grow,

coming back year after year, perennially returning,

some taking a little extra care, a little more TLC.

Their reds and pinks and yellows, their periwinkle and purple

and lilac draw the bees to them, also the butterflies,

and me, too, drawn to their flowers and sweet smell,

if not to their pollen and nectar, something to care about,

care for, watering and weeding, pruning and trimming,

even cutting them way back at the end of the season

before the snow arrives and buries them below the drifts

of wind-blown snow from across the yard and the swirling

snow off the lake, knowing for certain they’ll return

in spring’s warming, bloom again in the summer months to follow, 

beauty returned to the fallen and the fallow of winter’s cold,

something to look forward to in the changing of the seasons.