Aromas to Remember

for dVerse

Under the scent of the pines

Breathing deep

In the rain washed mountains

With snowmelt around her ankles

That’s not a little girl standing there

Though her hair is wispy

Fine and short

And her playmates whirl around her

No. Haven’t you seen a lost princess?

Running from imagined dangers

More real than the smiling grown-ups

And the smoke that lingers

From the barbeque

Perfuming the campground with hotdogs

And hamburgers

Welcoming a princess and her companions home

With the wafting sugared promise

Of marshmallows and chocolate

Under the camping stars

Sunrise

for dVerse

 

I rose up early

Before dawn

Waiting for the weaver

Plaiting colors

Of butter, coral, mauve

Across the robin’s egg domed sky

Fragile tapestry

Unraveling before day began

Scraps falling down

Catching in thorns

Blooming sweetly

Yet by any other name

Still a rose

Salted Words

for dVerse

spill my words in a shower of salt

tumbling into the tossing ocean below

flavoring the fords with fanciful lays

and sloshing against the slopping hills

where written words season

immerse, marinate and simmer

bubbling over and spilling again

singing with rushing storied steam

The Writer's Lament

for dVerse

O cursed writer’s block

The infuriating force that mocks

Bright-eyed scribbling dreamers

Producing tepid rhymes like femurs

The muse has flown

Leaving me in agonizing moans

Red-eyed grasping for straws

Landing in cliché’s redundant maw

O cursed writer’s block

The maddening force that mocks

Wild-eyed scribbling dreamers

Producing tepid rhymes like lemurs

There’s no way to exorcise it

No pathway to escape it

I’m sinking deep within its bog

My mind lost in a numbing fog

O cursed writer’s block

The exasperating force that mocks

Weeping scribbling dreamers

Producing tepid rhymes like streamers

Memorial Day

for dVerse

Among headstones

Flags flapping, snapping

Red and white and blue

Remembering

Loved ones I knew

Others only stories

And fallen soldiers

Pinwheels spinning

In the breeze

Green and pink and blue

Twirling, swirling

Entrancing a child

Catching me between tears

And a baby’s laugh