Pallid Spring

The flavor of pallid Spring is weak,
a tisane made of Winter grasses
steeped in snowmelt
and heated by a convalescent sun.
Such a wan conceit;
and finding nourishment in it
or in the Spring
is like searching for gems
on a pebble beach.

February 26 2014

The Rain Comes Down

The rain comes down
and down and down.
Some are blessed, 
and some may drown;
some must move 
to higher ground,
but all will feel its power.

February 26 2014

The Art of Finding Things

Sometimes all it takes is a kick
to turn the unsuspected stone in the gravel drive
and find its sapphire face, belonging in your mother's ring.
Remember Sherlock's adage and check the improbable.
Under can be high; look twice, but from different angles.
Suppose nothing; be of open mind, an eye without assumption.
Remember history, and spare one thought for Saint Anthony
if you do not happen to have him already
hanging beneath your shirt,
because his prayer for return of a stolen book was answered,
and the thief that was lost came penitent back to Orders.
Now Anthony is lost himself, but said to be found
in a higher place,
so he understands what happens.
Do not expect to regain everything;
faces in particular may never return in your lifetime,
but if you choose you may believe
that something else has found them, and in any case
no matter what you lost, or what disaster took,
it is usually somewhere,
and a rising lightness will be found with it
in the last place that you look.

February 6 2014