Sandia Rose Dahlia


A bay filled with water lilies
   yellow
            like the lake unwrapped
            a sun nugget
    and placed it on a lily pad.
While jet-skis and pontoon boats
noise the quiet,

the water 
      lily drifts when
  waves roll by
  stems where minnows 
  see them as lampposts 
     to lean on before
                        darting away

The Sandia Rose
Dahlia has no bay

a garden bed is a kind of bay
the blossoms   open   to water
lily sized    blooms that hover
           over the plant

          I sip a morning
           cup of coffee 
seek a way to shrink myself 
      to enter a blossom
   to become a minnow
    swimming in mid-air
        lavender petals 
    a sun buried within

here peace doesn’t call us
by our names
we have no names
we float
      it’s delicious
if only for a few seconds.






Why Should I?


At the corner of the shed,
ugh!  Vines and weeds,
vines and weeds, the balsam up
to their waists in tangle.  

Only two months ago,
a neat border,
not neat as a pin,
gardens shouldn’t be that neat,
but space was ample.  I get 
on my knees, yank, not trying
to make a perfect world
but to improve an imperfect one.

Sweat drips onto my thigh.  I look down
and scream: a spider!  On me!
I flick him onto the grass.  Later,

watching a Knots Landing rerun,
I feel silly.  He wasn’t scary.  
He was just out for a walk— 
I should have asked how
his day was and could I be

of assistance.  The flowers
don’t panic.  Why should I?  





Jerry Says


to Jeff: I can’t
compare you to a summer’s day
since you hate summer,
except for the fishing,
and you prefer night.  I can

compare you to little.  Sometimes
you’re like a swimming pool.  
I jump in.  The water
takes me in.  Or,
drained, maple leaves 
scudding on the bottom, 
nothing to jump in to.

We’re winter spirits.
Between us, a snowflake falls.
Call it a kiss.  We dream spring,
believe in it
like we believe in God,
a tigridia bloom’s magenta
heaven declaring war
on brevity.  No more comparisons.

Be.  Set similes free.
Summer, winter.  The calendar
cuts it up and serves.





And Later that Day I See My First Japanese Anemone


The traffic is snow—cars melt 
just beyond the house across the road.  
Three deer dare to waltz right by— 

not Bambi, our lilies tremble
before their soft brown eyes.  
I know I must go 

to work today.  Ants build holes 
and bees gather nectar—I wish 
I were them, but I nuke oat meal 

and hope that by the time I get home 
I’m not the banana peel browning
on the counter.  Still, 

light through the window glides in 
like Joan Crawford floating down 
a staircase.  The pomegranate has 

three deep orange blossoms.
I lock the door, drive off.
Anything is possible.





Phases of the Moon


Kids around here look at me 
like I’m nuts—I surely am 

the stark 
raving mad moonflower
queen of this neighborhood.  
Around suppertime I go out 
and wait.  If I’m patient,

I can watch them open
round white notebook pads
dusk writes on.  I’m often
impatient, so I need 
moonflowers, their silence 
a museum, spirits 
darting between exhibits, 

oh here it is, the first open
moonflower of summer— 

an astronaut, I explore 
for the first time 
a lunar surface that
smells of earth.