RED TREE, BLUE SKY







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NOW 

                  While some remains lie in half-acre tombs,
                  Admired in their cemetery plots,
                  I shall abide in sonnets’ pretty rooms,
                  Admired only as my skill allots,

                  And so each day I build my heritage:
                  Each rhythmic word laid down is like a brick
                  In a large structure that in time will bridge
                  The awesome gap between the dead and quick.

                  But now our little pup, who wants her walk
                  And gives no thought to what is moribund,
                  Whose chief concern is squirrels she can stalk
                  And other pleasures in our daily fund,

                      Reminds me: “Carpe diem is the way;
                      Instead of morbid maundering—come and play!”

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TESTAMENT

                      Let there be something left when I am gone
                      As evidence of my mentality,
                      Some luminosity that I have shone
                      That brightly lightens all posterity.

                     It isn’t fame and glory that I seek
                     But only to have fashioned something good
                    As evidence that though life can be bleak,
                    It’s glorious when rightly understood.

                   That life and mind and mystery should occur
                   Presenting us with challenges to face
                   Has led us throughout history to infer
                   That under all, there’s some amazing grace,

                        Some cosmic Mind, some grand progenitor,
                        An awesome source we surely must adore.

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BOUND VERSE

                  Why verse should seek its liberty from beat,
                  Those meters we’ve for centuries enjoyed,
                  Then long, as well, from rhyming to retreat
                  As if by such sonorities we’re cloyed
                  I cannot comprehend, for what is left
                  Is tuneless and might just as well be prose
                  When of all rhyme and meter it’s bereft,
                  Devices to keep readers from a doze.
                  You know with formal verse you’re in a game
                  Perhaps like tennis with its lines and net
                  Where masters over centuries won acclaim
                  Impressing minds with verse they’ll not forget.
                       Why not, instead, enjoy the paradox
                       Of sonic pleasures that bound verse unlocks?

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HOW THE DAY BEGINS

                 The dogs and I have our daily routines,
                 Which start with cuddling Tiggy, still in bed,
                 Though soon Gypsy, the bigger of our queens,
                 Conveys that it’s her petting time instead
                 And muscles in to get her share of strokes
                 Until it’s time for all of us to rise,
                 Which Gyppie indicates by giving pokes
                 With her blunt snout until I realize
                 It’s now our day begins and we go down
                 To the first floor and out to the back yard
                 And chase some raffish squirrels who taunt and clown
                 Around with both of them, though still on guard
                      Lest speedy Tiggy grab one by the tail,
                      Which she has tried—happily to no avail.

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RED SKY

                    The sky is all aflame as the sun sinks
                    And, if you didn’t know, you’d think the Earth
                    Were cursed, the victim of some cosmic jinx
                    And destined now if not for death, then dearth.

                    But soon that frightful inflammation fades
                    To Halleujahs  and fond accolades,
                    For every sailor knows, red skies at night
                    Betoken the next day their ship’s delight.

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G.O.D.

                    There’s something with which matter is infused,
                    Though not so much an entity as force,
                    By which all things are spiritually enthused
                    And set upon a purpose-ordered course.

                   How otherwise could we have come to be
                   Not only animate and conscious but
                   Invested with a will that’s partly free
                   And able to decide by brain and gut?

                   We’ve come to call this motivation “GOD,”
                   Good Orderly Direction’s acronym,
                   By which we’re elevated from mere sod,
                   A force we have personified as Him.

                       We’re better off the more we keep in touch
                       With what from nothing made so blessed much.

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