Bouganville

The beautiful begonia
Heaps her leaves to one side
Like a sexy lady
Catching my man's eye
Tossing her locks
As she walks.

Bouganville merely leans
Toward the sunlight
Which the lady,
An old fashioned type,
Avoids.

My man insists
Bouganville is male
And the lady,
Who walks her pooch,
No man. But I've spied
Her looking my way
And must say
The hairdo is a bachelor
In drag.

I say the begonia
Is so like a woman
That she is one,
Unlike this glancer,
This walker, this dancer.
One must be so careful
These days.

Spring

Sprawl, wild branches
O forsythia
Sprawl, wild tendrils

Spring in my heart
Sing in the new year
I remember Georgia
A single iris grew there

In the churchyard
The croci are singing
Like birds
Singing their dance of life
Purple, gold, white
Their tongues orange
Mouths agape

I remember Georgia
Dogwoods and daffodils
And my mother alive

You, a single iris
A single one, an iris
O royal plant

The dogwoods sprinkled the world
Like snowflakes

Spring II

Passion flowers predominate
Hyacinths are here
Forsythia are lingering
Signs I used to fear

The snow tumbling, not falling,
Yet caught, here and here, by buildings
It is turning and turning
Now turning to rain

The tree flowers are like clumps of snow in the rain
Caught everywhere in the branches
The snow is caught everywhere in the rainy branches too
Like tree flowers

And the daffodils in the kitchen:
Near orange, unusually fragrant for indoor flowers,
I pretend they were sent to me

Spring III

those trees
with the white flowers
line the street
like rows of cauliflower
at the supermarket
the flowers
that hang there forever
in this cold weather
that carries winter on and on
into mid April
but for the flowers --

the fleeting time
when flowers bloom
and glow and wither
in a day
is inoperative
this year
spring is arrested
as we might
have wished
in former years --

meanwhile,
my love
for you
grows greenly
in secret shoots
beneath
my austere
demeanor

Spring IV

the trees in the park
are greening now
looped
in lime clouds
the earth has passed
its trembling upheaval
and spring
is sliding into being
the time when we wake
o brutally
from the lethargy
of weighty winter
is over
and the days
go on and on
toward summer
easy now

A Dog Strikes and Pigeons Disperse

Up, quash
and then doom
A dog strikes
and pigeons disperse
A dog strikes
up, quash and then doom
Pigeons disperse
and regather
Thus pigeons gather
and regather

After Reading Snake

after reading
a great poem
a kind of hush
comes over me
a quiet
like a bird
gliding up and up
toward the rooftops
looking about
as she perches there

and yet since
i'm not a bird
and can’t fly
and look out from
my first story window
i go back
to the treadmill
of my life
fiddle
with the newspaper
and watch TV

Transference

When I write,
I try
to imitate
the ghostly way
you speak
to me.
I struggle
to affect
a voice
like yours
and, failing,
reveal something
near my own.

Ghosts Again

There is a way of talking,
Secret as an underground stream,
But warmer. It's telling
What you can, exactly and sure,
To some who have passed beyond
This life, and into a hidden realm.
They can speak as if they were here.
It's not delusional; I am free
Of confusion; not spaced out.
I obey all the conventions
You would like to see in me.
But, if it is more fun for you to scold,
And look askance,
I'll put it all in a poem,
Where you will not feel blighted,
Where it looks like it's all made up

My Heart

I feel so sad, inward
tears sliding
into my throat
memories of poems past
tell me writing
has gone from me
and all I have is you
tell me
that's not precarious
it's precious
because everyone else
is too busy for me
while you
stop and wait
for me
to come out again

Old Friends

Pale as the underside
Of leaves when the sun
Is making the up side greener,
My old friends talk more quietly
In my mind now that summer
Is here, greening the obvious
Sadness No new growth –
It was spring a long time –
And instead the quiet hum
Of fans and air conditioners.
Old friends don't say much,
And they grow gray as I do,
But they’re there like the summer
Greenery leaving only very rational
Imprints -- of their love grown
Deeper and shier But something
I didn't think of until now:
I am my friends’ friend too;
I too am a pale plant for them,
Seen from the underside,
And still, gray green.

Idle Tears

the rain
drains down
from
low clouds
like
my tears
agonized
but still
a kind
of purity
comes out
of the sky
and out
of my eyes
as i cry
to you