AUBADE

                    The birds are singing, tweeting, twittering
                    Not only for the morn but for the spring,
                    Their aubades blithe with the exuberance
                    This season brings, and hymns of joy commence.

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PUPPY LOVE

                    What is a puppy for, unless to be
                    Adored?  A little furry cuddlekins
                    To scoop up from the floor, put on your knee
                    Or snuggle with—­unlike a pet with fins.

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HANDICRAFTS

                  When I was just a boy, I used to weave
                  Potholders out of stretchy colored strings
                  Hooked on a metal frame to which they’d cleave
                  While my mind idly thought of other things.
                  What strikes me now, as I compose this verse
                  Of measured lines stretched out across the page,
                  Is what I’d done back then was to rehearse
                  How to make patterns in a kind of cage
                  As I do now, but in a verbal way
                 To fabricate a woven artifact
                 By doing work that seems like play,
                 Yet with a joy that mere potholders lacked.
                      Weaving pentameters across the page
                      Now takes that craft to an exalted stage.

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD

                    Small houses in our neighborhood are razed,
                    The rubble hauled away, the plots made flat
                    And shortly afterwards we’re all amazed
                    At the erection of a habitat
                    Fit for nobility or a tycoon:
                    Our neighborhood is being mansionized
                    And it’s predictable that very soon
                    The whole community will be up-sized.
                    And then, no doubt, a gated wall will keep
                    The riff-raff out, so ponds and lakes
                    Once public then are but a distant peep,
                    A property preserved for moguls’ sakes.
                        Instead of being invaded by rude hordes,
                        We’ll be supplanted by these upstart lords.

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SOURCE VI

for Wayne Dyer

                Call it Good Orderly Direction or
                Say God, the Source from which we all arise,
                Whom rightly we pay tribute and adore
                For all that it so lovingly supplies.

               Failing to recognize or rightly praise
               And draw upon the virtues of this Source
               Will leave one with wayward and fruitless days
               Filled with a sense of failure and remorse.

               Amazement is the right place to begin,
               Astonishment at what Creation’s made:
               This universe of galaxies we’re in
               That’s birthed our Earth, with consciousness arrayed.

                   To think we have an intellect inspired
                   By Source prompts us to ask: “What’s now required?”

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AUTHENTIC LIFE

                       As far as heaven goes, and afterlife,
                       I’ll simply have to wait and see—or not;
                       Although our sacred literature is rife
                       With declarations of our future lot,

                       It could be wishful thinking, fairy tales
                       Our fearfulness compels us to believe
                       When hope of staying here no more avails,
                       So to a desperate fantasy we cleave.

                      My best recourse then is to focus on
                      The best that I can make of my time here
                      So it is colorful, not pale and wan,
                      Bravely alive, not overcast with fear.

                         If there’s an afterlife, then let it be
                         After a life of authenticity.

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TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION

                  “Sha-dray, Sha-dray, Sha-dray, Sha-dray, Sha-dray,”
                  So went my TM mantra every day,
                  For twenty minutes first thing in the morn
                  And then again at eve, or be forlorn
                  For having broken faith with my routine
                  Designed to scour my harried conscience clean
                  Restoring me to blessed tranquility,
                  Re-centered in a blissful ecstasy.

                  Yet I’ve long since abandoned that routine
                  Replacing it with one that makes me keen
                  Instead of calm, though when I’m done—delight;
                  It’s what I’m doing now: I sit and write
                  And slowly watch some mystery unfold,
                  Then find that I’ve a sonnet to behold.

 

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