Mother Nature, the poet’s friend
you can forget
most of a day
to write
only to be
reminded by
the distant
sound of thunder
15 July 2013
Auburn AL
Category: Nature
be nice to bees
(for Bonny Chen)
I don’t remember
much about bees
but I think it’s true
that when a bee stings
its stinger rips off
and it dies quickly
if that’s true
I don’t quite get it
it’s not a useful defense
if it’s fatal
so then I thought
maybe bees have stingers
to protect the group
not the individual
the defenders
sacrificing themselves
for the good of the hive
when this occurred to me
I started to feel
differently about bees
8 July 2013
Auburn AL
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Leave a Comment![[Photo Credit]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:European_honey_bee_extracts_nectar.jpg){kind=link}
the blue crane and the yellowwood tree
in my dream
I saw a blue crane
under a yellowwood tree
she was standing there
majestic and serene
like a silent song
I couldn’t get out of my head
I approached slowly
she moved away
but didn’t fly off
she looked at me
with eyes like your eyes
I stood rooted, expectant
the smell of mangoes in the air
I thought if I could touch her
I might wake from the dream
to find she was real
so I moved forward again
but it was too much
she spread her wings
sang one bright, clear note
and flew off into the African sky
7 July 2013
Auburn AL
rainy season
the walkway to the laundry is flooded
following days and days of rain
it’s pouring now, in fact
so I’ve opened all the windows
to let in the sound
my first full summer in Alabama
reminds me of Japan
flower petals covering the stones
wearing my outdoor sandals
to haul the bag of laundry back inside
when I arrived here last year
it was in the middle of a drought
I hiked to a waterfall but found
a trickle (and even that’s generous)
this is the part of the poem
where the metaphor goes
6 July 2013
Auburn AL
all the way down
turtles still make me think of you
I imagine they always will
even though I can’t remember why
or how the association started
but I know that every time
one of these quasi-dinosaurs
crawls his imperturbable way
between the lines of one of my poems
he’s bringing a message from you
2 July 2013
Auburn AL
tiger
at lunch the expedition
was interrupted
by the arrival
at the edge of camp
of a Sumatran tiger
a creature so rare
everyone leapt up
to catch a glimpse
it eyed the watchers warily
for a moment
then stalked off
into the underbrush
leaving behind elation
at its existence
disappointment
at its departure
fear
that it might never
come again
20 May 2013
Auburn, AL
under a bigleaf magnolia
I can’t identify most trees by name
but I can remember exactly
where we were standing
the first time you kissed me
afterward a friend told me
it was a bigleaf magnolia
a primitive tree, she said
one of the first with flowers
a tree with leaves so big
they sometimes break
their own branches
I know how the magnolia feels
standing in its shade
I thought my heart might leap
through my ribcage
dissolving when it touched the air
and I imagined you opening
your own chest / reaching in
to remove a piece of your heart
so you could share everything with me
1 May 2013
Auburn AL
tall grass
there’s a place just off the path
where the tall grass is pressed down
fingers scratched from a prickly plant
growing up through the tall grass
hay strewn across the tall grass
caught in hair, on clothing
tall grass bathed in the full moonlight
like a day-for-night shot in a movie
still the next morning the tall grass
retains the shape of the night before
and in the laundry basket there is tall grass
and hay and a prickly plant waiting to be removed
27 April 2013
Auburn AL
migration
there are
a thousand birds
of every color
sprinkled
across the sky
like distant gods
26 April 2013
Auburn AL
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This poem tried hard to be the beginning of a longer poem, but I just kept coming back to these two stanzas until they felt complete.
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