Winter Lament

The snow melted quickly followed by a soft rain.

The hardscrabble road is muddied, it does not drain.

Vehicles parked at road's head, a brisk walk ensues.

The snow is blinding white, playful glistening hues

Where are my cross-country skis? I was not ready.

Watching the pros, they make the sport look so heady.

I fall and get up again, only wounded pride.

I, the novice, barely learning to stop and glide.

Next time it snows, determined to not be sidelined.

To join the venturing crowd, for this I have pined.

Lost Recipe

Family traipse to West Virginia hills

Song of lulling creek leads to places stilled

Yon simple world of all set right

Grandmother’s kitchen of harvest home due

Collards with ham hock, pintos on to stew

Sour milk cornbread's waft of delight!

Wains banished to reap apple tree’s bounty

Greening promise of lush Logan County

Ancient tilled verdant valleys bright

Winter's Duties

Chased from the garden, wind biting

The season's change unexpected 

Dormant perennials resting

Winter sunshine is soft to the eye

Promises of spring to succor

Beckoning by cloudless blue sky 

Soil to prepare, no easy sod 

Holes to dig wielding mattock and shovel 

Thin soil tops layers of thirsty clay clod

The smaller garden lays fallow 

Fruit trees fan out to provide shade 

A quiet space, sparse and hallow

Blackberry hedge, verdant running  

Uncrowded roots relish rich soil

Enlarged space succulent spreading

Soil easily tilled hides hardpan

Mattock breaks brittle compacted

Clay, to mold with ashes and sand

A windbreak of branches and limbs 

Gales unrelenting, bring havoc 

Shredded plants appear sparse and grim

Summer growth is coaxed and nurtured

Birds feast on pesky grasshoppers

By vociferous swarm perturbed 

I will build dwellings for their nests  

Will provide water for their drink 

They keep at bay the garden pests 

Up at dawn, simple existence

Songbirds to awaken the day 

The eastern sky in pastel tints

Robot Unproven Zzzz's

Wretched punctuation! Quite daring ignorance! 
Period or comma? Period and comma? 
Bibliography form so differing from text. 

Must not sleep at the keyboard. Dot and tittle creep! 
Must focus on words and text. All else must empty. 

Worries, concerns thrown to side, under. Key pad rules! 
Rule the laptop screen! Rule the text! Rule my fingers! 

Keypad my mind from worries! Perish to flux rule,
Inconstant emotion, uncertainty of thought. 

 Umbra

       The concussive wave lifts the ground as the underlying soils fry and the precious water contained therein boils away. The structures are no more and the city of souls evaporates in an instant, in the blink of an eye: in a speck of time that evolved from eons of change, the earth changes again. The minute crystals of quartz in the sands and soils melt and reform as glass. The iridescent colors and patterns of the surface plane are created as the earth itself memorializes the moment. Simultaneously hallowed and obscene, words offered to grasp with the mind the tumult of the braziered landscape.

       Saturo, the painter, is here early to try to get a start on his duties before the office workers arrive. His young family remains at home snuggling in their bedclothes after seeing Satoru off to work. The morning holds the promise of a golden August summer day. The roses are in bloom around the building where he is to work this morning and the waft of the delicate scent delights the young man. Thoughts of his wife surround him as the roses immerse him, a beguiling perfume that his woman wears only for him and this always makes him feel honored. This morning Satoru wanted to take his family to see his father on the farm to the north of the city. The gardenias are in bloom but the maintenance duties cannot be excused and Satoru unloads his paintbrushes, ladder and paint and tries to decide where to begin his task that will be finished by the end of his shift.

        Haruto, the bookbinder, misses his wife of sixty-three years. Her health is not good and the couple agrees she is to spend time enjoying the pristine air and waters of Nara, a mountain retreat that at one time was the capital of Japan. Haruto works as a bookbinder, a time-honored profession that he now teaches to the young who aspire to a humble yet noble craft. Haruto can bind hand lettered manuscripts entirely without the aid of modern machinery. These are his favorite texts to work with and display as the quality of his work is superior and Haruto has wide reknown for his craftsmanship and is widely sought out even though he is over eighty-one years old.

        Asuga wants to practice jump rope this morning. She awakened early and prepared a breakfast of fruit and tea for herself. The apricots are sweet and juicy and the syrup runs down her chin onto her blue smock. She finishes her meal and sees the sunlight shining through the rice paper shade in the window. She waves to her cat who is languidly enjoying the morning as well, his tail flicking back and forth lazily. Asuga does not want to be teased by her friends Chiyo and Emiko who laughed at her when she tripped over the rope the last time they played together.

       The wind is docile this morning with a few leaves gracefully shimmering in the light. The scent of pine is pervasive as the trees flourish in the city gardens and private courtyards. The chattering echoes of several sparrows and thrushes can be heard innocuously in the background. The street vendors are about and proceed to shout their offerings and the market prices of the day. Asuga sings to herself a rhyme she has created to skip rope with while the drone of an aircraft can be softly heard overhead.

Works Cited

1. History Daily. “The Shadows of Hiroshima”. 09 June 2017.

 https://historydaily.org/the-shadows-of-hiroshima/ 

https://d14e8oeg5e788p.cloudfront.net/content/52459/b7ece048f32b0992c709784fa5cb62df.jpg/  

Accessed 31 March 2020.

 

2. History Daily. “The Shadows of Hiroshima”. 09 June 2017.

https://historydaily.org/the-shadows-of-hiroshima

https://d14e8oeg5e788p.cloudfront.net/content/52459/a750419dc4e5cc75a875dda6ddfd259.jpg.               

Accessed 01 April 2020.

 

3. The Different Group. “Shadows of Hiroshima”. 22 Aug. 2016.

https://www.thedifferentgroup.com/2016/08/22/ombre-di-hiroshima-nuclear/

Accessed 02 April 2020.

 

 

 

 

Summer Reflection

Growth persuaded by summer sun

Persistence leading verdant run

Breeze teased, comforting, sweet relief

Yet same strips earth, giving, taking,

Carried away, unprotecting

Heat singed grass, vine, and thickets' sieve

Hidden from midday scorching ray

Life succumbs to cool shadows play

Slanted light leads to twilight's chords

Infused summer’s warmth, banked earth yields

Darkened sky, moon, and stars to shield

Evening the fiery orb

Onward and Upward

Excitement of new beginnings, hope springs lively 

Apprehension, patience, fulfillment of psyche, 

Onward to rewarding light, to painterly words. 

Works of brightness, of heights and lows, of dark sky wrent 

Users and inconstant fair-weather friends absent 

Reaching returns uncertainty, silence, cut cords. 

Tutelage perhaps? Aloneness? Future’s binding? 

All who defined me are dead, reclused or hiding. 

Self-wrought, I traverse frozen winters, iced fjords.