Sunday, April 5, 2015

Mountains are lessons in patience.


 ***

Steep
but not unkind

a mountain
waits for me

eternal,
patient,

unfazed
by my fumbling
my missteps
scraping
against her
face

as I slipped
  again
and again

trying to find
my way.


Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A hole in the fence is a gateway to adventure.




Someone has broken through the fence!

made a wormhole
into a restricted zone

-- a forest reserve to be kept
preserved from curious hikers
        who only loved to walk
        the soft native earth.

They'd brush aside thorny vines that catch them,
rush through blades of grass that cut them

       just to find a way to get lost

in a patch they call 'nature',

       to breathe in the green

and bathe their heads
under the golden sunbeams
falling through the canopy.


***

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The dry season


***

close to the end of a dry season

i went to a park
sat on the grass

breath the warm breeze
that sweeps over the blue
reservoir waters, watch the waves
lap and overlap


i pulled out a notebook
and pen, trying to
catch all in words

onto an empty page that was glaringly
white

the words

        were reluctant
        having been quiet
        
left in the dark

       for so long

       i pressed the tip of the pen against
       the paper

forced out lines that brought
more regret than reflection


Nature is simpler
an ant in the grass


so i began again:
an ant in the grass.


***

Saturday, February 21, 2015

A bullfrog in a storm drain



In channels clogged with compose
under the steel-fit manhole,
a bullfrog groans bass tone moans.

Caught in last night's downpour
while out on the garden lawn,
he went with the 
 water           
                       

-- because that's all he knows
       from days of being a tadpole
before he grew legs
and things
            
                       got complicated --

went with the flow,

          and all the leaves
     that fell in heaps
    
went with him....

In channels clogged with compose
under the steel-fit manhole,
a stranded bullfrog longs
      for another great rain storm.


***

A repost from 2012 NaPoWriMo.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Nature takes back everything



Madras pea pumpkin vines entwine 
a pair of rusty shopping carts;

rainwater collect in beer bottles 
and cans; wild grass blankets
the ghost junction of railway lines
             and wind-bent signs.

At dusk, sun rays throw shadows
through rows of paperbark trees

& just before receding,touch pieces 
of broken sand glass, reflecting
lights :red :amber :green.



...

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Maybe....


The meaning of Maybe

a peep of the sun

on the horizon
the clouds gather

so eager to greet 

the day with her
that everything there

becomes grey.