The Poet's Room

  Adieu, Adieu, Dead Shrew Calendar, for you have fulfilled your allotted duty. Faithfully recording each month and day in 2023. Forsooth, pray thee why hast thou been ignored by most. Forsooth I say, what hath the Sports Illustrated Calendar have over thee. Naught! I say naught. It could not hold a candle to thee. What pray tell doth scanty pieces of cloth, that barely cover any fleshy part have over your warm rich fur covering all but tail and nose. Tis but an aberration of culture for there's truly nothing can compare to thee, Dead Shrew Calendar. Miss January, started that year off by posing, her buxom short tailed shrew self, with black coat that served her well until meeting a toothy demise. Now we bid you farewell, knowing your likes may never grace a calendar again. Then we wrap up 2023 with Miss December, a long tailed, short bodied beauty, with silver gray coat, and pink snooze pointing us toward the year to come. Adieu, Adieu, your likes may never grace a calendar agai

Our Six Dollar Tea Rose!           E ating lunch I looked out the slider as our potted rose bloom bowed and straightened in the ebb and flow of each wind gust.  P utting pen to paper I wrote the following poem Prelude to Winter  The rose Continues to  Bloom as Summer ends, and Fall winds test Passion's resolve;                The word   Passion originated from the Greek meaning to suffer. In our present culture the word  has various meanings frequently contrary.  Passion can mean full engagement or an obsessive drive to excel in a vocation such as music, science, business, learning, teaching, sports or medicine. A human can even be passionate to end suffering. The Buddha's calling.    

  At Camus's Bench! Sitting in Fall's quiet, Sun above trees, Highlights Hickory  Yellow leaves;                 The start of October, with my Achilles heal on the mend I start taking longer walks at the conservancy.   The narrow path through the prairie passes a variety of asters, beautiful late blooms. Blues and whites, the name Aster from the Greek meaning "Star". Seed heads of grasses grown heavy in ripening wave back and forth in a light breeze. I run my hand over a stem. Glean a hand full of seeds. Release them to the wind. Everything is as it should be.               I enter the pines find pine sap oozing from scars where limbs had been in the tree's youth. Deep shade and quiet permeate everything including my being.   I walk among friends who say everything by just growing into the light. At the bottom of the trail the bench with the Camus quote. I sit down observe  sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees. A breeze shakes loose wild cherries hangin

             Launching astronauts into space gave us a view of earth none of us had ever seen before. An incredible picture of our self sustaining home, our living breathing space ship, a blue-green organic jewel hanging in the black of space, illuminated by our sun. Somewhere on the picture each of us resides living out our lives. Now in my senior years, the following poem provides a perspective on our human journey. Today....Pray! Earth wobbles  Slightly, Twenty-four Hours a day,  Turning,  Three hundred  Sixty-five times; Each year Lived; As night fades,  Black sky  Softens To pale gray, Until brilliant  Lasers  Shoot through The horizon, Like petals opening On a new flower, A glowing red disk Rises, between  Earth and heaven,  Spreads light  As far as   Morning eyes,  Can see; The new day dawns Like a curtain drawn Reveals stage And setting For  The evolving Parade of life; At the Firefly  Coffee House, Enter stage left, A proud new mother, Places her three month Child on her lap,

Purple Prairie Clover           Near the end of June with little to no rain. Weather people on the T.V. call this a mild drought. Mild? Meaning corn ankle high, maybe by the 4th of July? Maybe? I go for a walk with Julie a friend over to the conservancy. We park on Big Bluestem Parkway cross a patch of blue grass now turned brown. The only color  in the mown area by wild Morning Glories and yellow Birds-foot Trefoil .  Morning Glories Dry Grass & Birds-foot Trefoil         Blue grass exists with very shallow roots.  We cross the brown blue grass and paved walking path to a narrow earth path that enters the prairie. Here a different story. Cup Plants and Grasses rise from the earth head high in a mosaic of green; a rich diversity of plants with deep roots, resistant to drought and fire. Here a different ecosystem in dramatic ways.  The blue grass appears dead or nearly so due to a lack of water. The prairie plants thick and thriving due to deep roots. Some in bloom. Trail into the P