VIVIENCE

                      A word that somehow never came to be
                      Whose synonym might be vitality
                      Is vivience—like vivid: striking, bright,
                      Or vivify: make more alive in sight,
                     And what example could be more intense
                     Than a new baby’s cry: lusty, immense!

*

BUD AND TIG

                  That Bud and Tiggy’d ever be a match
                  Is too absurd, considering how small
                  She is, though she thinks he’s a real catch,
                  Impressed in part perhaps because he’s tall.

                 Their courtship, though, can be no more than play
                 In chance encounters on our daily strolls
                 That lead us by his house most every day,
                 Drawn by the eager yearning of their souls.

                 Platonic play is all they may enjoy,
                 A bit of frisking all in innocence,
                Two passing sailors calling out “Ahoy!”
                A fondness that can never grow intense.

                    And yet, I’d bet that in Tig’s nightly dreams
                    Their courtship grows under the moonlight’s beams.

*

MILLS LAWN
ROLLINS COLLEGE






*

GLITTER FISHING
LAKE VIRGINIA

*

JUST DUCKY

*

FROM TRASH TO STASH

 for Lila

                    I know a lady who cannot abide
                    Good cast-off items set at the curbside
                    And destined to be hauled away as trash,
                    Knowing that they’ll so soon be gone to smash,

                   And yet that means that stashed in her garage
                   And dining room and elsewhere this hodgepodge
                   Has taken hostage her once tidy home,
                   Through which she wends as in a catacomb.

*

TOWARD WISDOM

 
for Copthorne Macdonald 

 April 1, 2016

                    If I were seeking truly to be wise,
                    I’d need at first to clearly recognize
                    Just what the opposite of wisdom is,
                    Misleading us from true sagacious bliss.

                    Some say it’s folly, some stupidity,
                    A waywardness that’s our proclivity
                    That only growing wise can rectify,
                    A moral compass on which to rely.

                   And now, since seeking wisdom is my aim,
                   It properly behooves me to proclaim
                   That even on this day named after fools,
                   It’s rightly true sagacity that rules,

                        And if we can commit to growing sage,
                        Humanity at last may come of age.

*