Trumpet Call

A young girl in her Easter finery

skipping through the park,

twirling an umbrella and laughing

at the kaleidoscope of colors the spinning creates

reminds me how simple things,

like colors flashing in the sun,

would bring a joy that, once,

long ago it seems, would wash over me

to lift my spirits out of an emotional ditch,

filled with the detritus and silt of past hurts

and worries of the future,

that I would seem to fall into,

again and again.

Age and responsibility kept pressing on my shoulders,

leaving me bereft of smiles and happiness,

furrowing my brow with the lines of worry,

fear and anger, that many mistake for age.

A finch sitting in an old oak tree warbling its songs

understands more about this world than I do.

No future, no past, just an ever-present now.

Was it age that silenced that simple joy?

Why do I sit, cozened by an old religion

into waiting for a trumpet to sound,

calling me away from my worldly cares,

to be happy again?

The thought of that trumpet’s call

suddenly makes me laugh,

as I realize the song of the finch

and the little girl’s laughter

are indeed, the clarion call to happiness

I have sorely missed for all these years.

Ten words from a friend, Allison: trumpet, wash, bereft, silt, finch, umbrella, oak, finery, ditch, lift.

Forest Meditation

Following a well-worn path from the cabin,

she pushes through the dense brush to her spot,

her hidden sanctuary, and sits on a fallen tree

lying next to a large mirror-surfaced pond

created long ago when a jumble of large rocks

slid down the hill side in a torrential storm

to impound the swift moving waters

of a trout stream winding its way

through the valley.

Surrounded by the cool fresh green of leaf and fern,

she kicks her shoes off and smiles,

her bare feet and toes caressing

the cold soft mud and gravel,

the past week’s tension escaping,

releasing in a long exhalation.

The first solitary raindrop from the dark cloud

of an imminent storm ripples on the surface

animating the reflections shining on the water.
It is a discovery for her, a revelation

that she is truly in the moment,

the past forgotten and the future unimagined.

With a deep inward chuckle she speaks

expressing her thought out loud

as if to make it official,

“I shall call you Loch Reflection!”

As the intermittent drops

rapidly turn into a steady rain,

scattering the reflections on the surface

into chaos, she continues to sit, 

allowing the downpour to bathe her

to cleanse body, mind and soul,

at peace, finally.

Another jigsaw poem. This one took almost two weeks to work out. Words were given to me by my sister-in-law Kimberlee. They are: Leaf cloud fern mud pond stream raindrop loch trout gravel

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Support this old poet!

I have been struggling with writer's block a lot over the past couple of years. I have all sorts of excuses - work, loss of work, financial worries, health problems, issues in our politics and society, family issues - but in the end, they are all excuses. 
I've written hundreds of letters to the editor, then tossed them into the trash and deleted the trash. A couple have made it to the local newspaper. And then there's the nonsense of Facebook. OMG have I LOL'd far too much! Pissing matches with trolls, long diatribes on the state of affairs in this country and the world, and fervent appeals for people to pay attention to the climate crisis, replete with source citations and substantiating science.
Unfortunately, the creative side has been absent. So yesterday I turned to an old friend to see if I could kick-start my muse. I call it the jigsaw poem. I ask folks to give me 10 random words and I look for an inspiration in them to write a poem using those words within the poem.
So, yesterday my niece, Veronica, gave me these 10 words: preserve, condensation, lichen, anime, coffee, bufflehead, lighting, multiplication, fluffy, towered. 

Here is the poem I cobbled together using them. Please tell me what you think!

Deciding Factor

Somehow life had become too complex,

The simplicity of morning coffee and watching anime

Had slowly evolved into a multiplication of problems

Of bills, relationships and responsibilities,

Towering higher and higher, frightening, threatening.

So she ran, seeking the solace of ocean waves,

lichen covered rocks and the refreshing condensation

of morning mists floating down from the skies.

It is here she finds solace.

The dim lighting of dawn is healing to her,

A therapy of light and the unspoken promise

Of a new day.

The smells of brine and the rippling beauty

Of the receding tide preserves her inner calm.

The strength within that city living abhors

Gradually returns.

A bufflehead and its fluffy chick wander the mud flats

Diligently searching for the tiny shrimp, worms and larvae

Exposed by the receding waters.

“I belong here, with you,” she says to the small ducks.

“Not in steel, concrete and glass canyons.

Here where the water is a mirror, where chaos has order,

Where life is in the present moment,

Worrying neither about the past or the future.”

The ducks pay her no heed and continue their foraging.

Simplicity, she thinks, knowing this calming scene

Is a complex tableau of life and death beyond imagination,

Yet, calm. And in that healing calm

She makes her decision.

3/31/20