Occasionally the idea arises that possibly some of the scrap paper doodles in my notebook might have a smidgen of poetic resonance. The kind of words normally coming off my pen aren’t anywhere near what most call poetry, and to that extent I’m no poet. But sometimes the urge comes to play the words in a different way. Here are a couple of pages pulled dogeared and dirty from that notebook.
CHERRY BOWL
Spring piled up in a kitchen bowl—
scooped from ground spread with drifts of pink,
a handful of wind-scattered cherry blossoms
offering a last splash of fragile color
in the space of this Sunday room.
AT DAY’S END
The brown of used up leaves,
spots of dull red
crinkled on garden paths and city curbs.
Faded green
giving way finally
to sere remnants of late autumn.
All stands still
in the cold light of retreating day.
The only movement
a trembling leaf
held to branch by one last breath,
but it too gives up
and falls
a fluttering spiral.
The man next door
burns his heap of leaves,
rake in hand
standing vigil, the smoldering heap.
Smoke-scented air and
overhead two, three
persimmons
speckled with black,
waiting to offer their last
to sharp-eyed crows,
while shiny orange cousins
sit in kitchen bowls
or hang drying on veranda poles
Again and again
a child slides on wilted cardboard,
down down the concrete slope
A scratchy whoosh
Whoosh! repeated repeated.
Mother watches,
or halfway watches,
bored with autumn, the repeated game.
Old-fashioned speakers
high in the shedding trees
begin their call.
Old ballad, old notes calling:
Late afternoon
Time to go.
Mama is waiting
Time for home.
Light fades
curtains shutters
close out the night.
Muted sounds of a quiz show
all that remain
at this day’s end.
