Haikuey For A Friend

“How would you say this more simply and more haikuey”  –

“Spring Sunset Gold-Yellow Song Upon The Sky Trumpeting Daffodils?”

How would I? (turn this observation and string into a haiku), is the question asked of me about eight years ago when it was queried, and almost five years since she passed and crossed over the rainbow bridge. I may have tried once, however I was none-too successful. She was my favorite poet, even though she hardly wrote any tailored or even casual poetry. Her words just flowed into “raspberry and tangerine images.” Ours was a forty-year correspondence with a shared love of nature and the arts.

I rediscovered the question on a sticky note in her very distinct handwriting this morning and decided to sit down and finish the conversation. I hope that I can do her proud and know that she is smiling anyway.

For Robin, forever friend – I miss you and your words:

daffodils trumpet
sunset’s golden song  ~
a listening sky

ag ~ June 2017

I hope the stars appreciate your special beauty.

 

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Stormku

March moon
storms of tweets
and snow

~

somehow Stella makes the storm more neighborly

~

sometimes it takes a storm to bake cookies

 

Wet With Rain

Wet With Rain
My heart mourns
the loss of words
once ribboned into poems
now empty – a clothesline
between two poles.

My throat lumps
at the muddle of notes
no longer giving voice
to windstorms or the sky
holding its breath.

My eyes mist over
the just-before-moonrise
when twilight offers its nakedness
on a purple breeze
and wild bergamot wet with rain.

And my lonely heart,
lost in a mulberry thicket,
longs for the night when the moon’s halo
no longer lingers, long and sweet
on your lips.

 

It Helps To Remember

Good morning!

The garden is glorious. More so as
early clouds pearl the earthy color.
Hummingbirds, butterflies and all sorts
of winged and waddling critters
are hard at work on the Sage, Snapdragon and Angelica
that gently ripple and titter in conversation.

Such a poppy of delight! I do my best to savor
what we shared in the garden, and it helps to remember
that your hands and fairy blue eyes
also loved to caress the Calendula, Cleome, Rue
and sweet September mornings
such as this.

For Robin
September 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 30…

We often give very little consideration to those people who live toward the edge of our lives. They’re not part of our inner circle but orbit somewhere on the far circumference – so much so that we hardly pay attention to them until they disappear. Usually for me this means they move out of my figurative or literal neighborhood. When this happens, their presence comes into sharp focus because of their new or pending absence. It does not matter how little contact I really have with them – it’s always more than enough for some tearful grief.

 

news of her moving flashbacks to winter in fourth grade

 

ag ~ 2015

January 16…

I had a crappy day today. Crappy is a good word for it. After an emotional upset early on, I later lost my eyeglasses and a favorite scarf. The only saving grace was meeting a therapy dog named Redon. He is an eight year old golden retriever who is in the midst of a career change. From seeing-eye to therapy. I felt better knowing that if a dog, equivalent to the age of 56 can change his habits, so can I. Redon sniffed me and wagged his tail, no doubt recognizing my own canine love on my faded jeans.

sometimes letting go of the small stuff is the big stuff

ag ~ 2015

Infinite Shades of Gray

No Other Song

Now that you passed
never to walk your beloved beach
again in this lifetime
I wish I could say that gulls
cried out for you
or that the waves ebbed
longer than usual.

Or even that a storm brewed
on the day you decided to leave
but I cannot –
that would do you an injustice
in fact it would negate
the real beauty that you
were able to poet so well.

You knew that the gulls
could be a nuisance now and again
that weathered beach pilings 
smell of creosote 
the tide obeys no one
and the receding sea 
fades to infinite shades of gray.

It does not matter
now that you have gone
the gulls still raucously stake their turf
or silently glide over waves
a rise and fall in measure
to the beat of no other song
than that of another day.

ag ~ 2014