surprise frog package *sniff*

froggy things arrived by post
two of the things i love the most
two funny books! for laughs or napping
all in wondrous froggy wrapping!

from Osprey, a fellow doggerel lover,
a lover of silliness and surprise
a person of remarkable energy and humour and passion,
the funnest and most creative time of my life is due to her.
it changed me for the better.

now she is on her way out the door,
into the next something or nothing,
a light will go out in our world. 
she plans her exit for the solstice,
to steal off in the darkness while everything sleeps.

all of us who knew her will carry a little of osprey within us, and feel joy and loss when we think of her -- and i have her books!!

i had some Lear and Carroll and even Don Marquis, and all those funny books, but of  Belloc i only knew to be kind and tender to frogs!  osprey wanted to further my education in this respect, and as she will have no more use for these books, i am so happy to receive them.

 the synchronized unicycle and knitting drill team at an early rehearsal

the weather the weather the weather

dear friend

the weather as always is strange here where it's nearly november. 
our first snowflakes fall past my window.
this is not the strange part.

the strange part was yesterday eve they were haying across in the field.  
tractors and trucks with their summertime hum, 
loading the bales.

and our silver maple has taken a vow to renounce deciduosity. 
tho all other trees have turned red/gold and bare, 
she wears green.

Sunny with patches of brown and snowing

well now it rhymes. does that make it a poem?

what is spring up to?
unpacking her bag?
hey, wait -- that's not spring!
it's old jack frost in drag.

see, he's wrapped her blue skies
over his frosty suit
just as soon as she catches him,
he'll get the boot!

sunny with patches of brown

out the window i stare hard at Spring - is she unpacking?
or living from a suitcase??
the birds will know.
oh wait! hahaha!
it isn't Spring at all!
it's Jack Frost in drag
what jokers they are!.

well then go ahead and panic

happy birthday to Doug Adams.
oh no! you're still dead. :(
just pour me some old janx spirit

“Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

teeny xmas book

liz made some teeny tiny books to sell at the xmas craft fair in december.
they were so well made, with such good quality paper, i had to have one.
even tho she had added a ribbon to hang it on the xmas tree,
which is not something i do.
but they were so wonderful, i got one anyway.

after xmas i realized i could write in it if i wanted!
what if i wrote in one every year, what happened on xmas?
what if i'd started this years ago?  

as the chinese saying goes "the best time to plant an apple tree is 10 years ago. 
the second best time is now" 
or something like that.

so i wrote in this one and plan to buy a few more...
let's see, if i live to be 120 i'll need...omg.

well it turned out the darn thing had like 40 some pages! (each page had 2 sides)
here's the first 4 pages (i only wrote on one side)

"now two-thousand twelve is ending"
"tis december twenty five"
"and despite the mayan warning"
"we have managed to survive"

and on and on and on it goes!!

i can haz book?

summer's end

labor day was summer blue and pink
shy autumn played around the edges
tuesday never dawned
cold rain down your back


and rain and rain and rain and rain
and i opened my eyes to dreams of yellow pencils
and the smell of paper wrappers on crayons
chalk dust squeak


oh to be in second grade
and the cold rain falling
my new desk shines smooth under warm lights
and my teacher is so beautiful!

getting away for the day

Labor Day monday
a beautiful day!
sunny, breezy, not too hot, not too cool

in the morning,
cars headed north with kayaks on the roof
and cars headed south with kayaks on the roof

cars with bicycles on the roof drove north
and cars with bicycles on the roof drove south

later bicyclists bicycled by going north
and more going south

in the evening it all reversed.

SL9B tinies and poems

mudpie's listening to her poem AGAIN with a handsome bunny who happened by.

she's so excited that her poem is in one of the 'shrooms at the tinies' exhibit area for SL9B (Second Life's 9th birthday celebration).  mudpie's written many haiku, but she didn't realize how complicated an ode is to write when she started it!

tinies are friendly and fun and love waffles, but lots of them are also poets!

here's mudpie's poem:

ODE TO WAFFLES

waffles glow in shades of golden.
roundness is a waffles contour.
small square holes for butter holdin'
into which we syrup's font pour.

you can eat things on a stick stuck,
vegan vegetarian local,
sandwiches or hot falafels,

you can fry food in a mix up,
mew for cheezburgers - be vocal,
but for me -- i can haz WAFFLES!

 

 

the wrong door

open the door
walk into sunshine, birdsong, flowerglow.
how could this happen?
have i these long cold months
been opening the wrong door?

                                           ~mudpie

let your smile be your umbrella - my birthday version!

let your smile be your umbrella

let your grimace be your shoe

let your smirk be your sombrero

and you'll find a love that's true

let your frown be your long underwear

and your sneer your pocketbook

let your grin be your ballet shoe ribbon

then you'll know you're off the hook!

I thought of this poem in my sleep last night and wrote it down when I woke up this morning!  A good birthday poem! 

(You have to stomp and clap to the fiddle and banjo, and join in on the chorus)

goosing the poet

geese again!

what is it with the wild geese
here's yet another poem
telling how someone's heart lept
telling how new hope was born on their wings
but tell me, what kind of life is that
like rock stars, they bring us momentary joy,
excitement, forgetfulness of self
and then they are gone in the freezing sky
a damp and dangerous life of wandering, homeless
and what about the tame geese?
what's wrong with 3 square meals and a cozy shed?
a few responsibilities, guarding the house or bullying the sheep?
perhaps a swift death and an afterlife as a quilt
not the cruelty of a broken wing, a coyote family feast?


================

going away party

mindfulness

ever so carefully stepping
firmly on each narrow step
down our steep new-england stairway
i in my flip-flops
long bathrobe
reading glasses
practice total concentration
to carry a jar in one hand
the other hand steadily pressing an index card to the top
as i place each foot just so
one foot after the other
one eye on the spider in the jar
soon to learn that the world is a very big place

~_^

tired and muddy!

less than a week and the road to the south is passable again!
i drive out to shower at kathe's, stupified by the new scenery,
the young who rioted in london were a puff of air
compared to the rioting of vermont brooks
let loose from their beds for a day to rearrange the landscape to their liking.
here and there i pass a house that looks solid and untouched
my heart leaps with the wish that i lived there.

what IS a meadow for?

what IS a meadow for?

i'm sitting on my meditation cushion
and in the morning sunlight i can see
faint green diagonal lines
behind the strongly buttery yellow walls.
the old wallpaper.
i remember my cousin roger's room
years and years, paint after paint
i could still see the cowboys from his childhood wallpaper if i knew what i was looking for.
isn't it a wonderful metaphor?
open the gate and let the cows in to graze.

*************

in defense of northern spring on April sixth

a friend in maryland emails:
Sympathy to you both......my lilacs are blooming and the purple martins have returned with nesting materials in their carpetbags.....82 degrees yesterday

my maine friend responds:
Ah, but talk to us in July or August, when WE'RE at 82 degrees 

and i am seized with inspiration and my love for the north and my annoyance with those who think we are somehow held here against our will and are to be pitied, and i emal back:

or talk to us now!
when snowflakes are falling
and the white hills with their bare black trees
backdrop for the fields, white with brown showing
and vernal pools form where soon
frogs will thaw - riotously desperately fatally mating
yelling their heads off about it

and talk to us now
while the streams crash and thunder
as boulders moved by the roaring waters
are fueled by the melting ice
that crashes into the bridges sending the river over the land
and the birds maddened in their homecoming excitement
trill and call raucously all day
in the misty air of the hot sun on the cold snow

i've learned to love a wilder spring
not the generous ripening sort
from my southern childhood
all perfume and soft breezes
now i love the crazed dance
of a crooked crone and her consort
staving off death
dancing wild and desperate
clamouring for life
drinking the cold maple sap
straight from the bucket

That'll tell 'em

  

dual alarm cats

one cat misty predawn grey
striped with wet deep brown bare trees
the beech still with their tan leaves
that hang on all winter to guide the deer
pats my face before cold sunrise
crawls in as i lift the blanket
to a warm ball against my tummy.

sunlight filtering thru blinds
the tiger cat comes stiped like
sunbeams thru dissolving mist
orange shadows cross white snow
a fire beneath glows brighteyed
pounce! on the purring lump
beneath the blanket
morning is here!

hankzilla vs buster brown

back on dec 12 i wrote this verse about kitten hank.
he turned out to be a born killer and we have the scars to prove it.

the hankosaurus never sleeps
onto your bed hankzilla leaps.
pouncing upon them as they doze...
his midnight snack - not toast, but TOES

on jan 4 we brought in buster
and they took to each other like a cock fight

here they are becoming frenemies

and after that i had to put the camera down and rescue buster!

we are fattening up buster and putting him in training - he looks like he'll grow up to be bigger than hank, but he's a lover not a fighter.

only a cold

4:18 a.m.
the cough medicine's worn off.
the kitten pushes my cellphone
and coughdrops to the floor
then crawls between the quilts
down to where i fear he will smother.
do you notice when you smother?
you still breathe, just nothing with oxygen.
gently, i remove him,
trying to give no encouragement of play.
i wriggle under the pile of quilts
meant to warm me out of my coughing,
pull the flannel sheet over my cold ear
worry that i'll fall asleep
and choke to death on this cough drop.
a square of light races around the room
and is gone.
who is driving this road at 4:18?
someone who comes or goes to work
maybe at a hospital.
they arrive out of the dark
to hot coffee and people maybe donuts.

i smile to myself.
or maybe a breakfast cook
at the diner. or maybe a baker.
my breathing relaxes and deepens
at the thought of fresh baked bread.
oh it could be someone coming home
from making snow all night
for the ski trails on okemo or ascutney.
or a woman in labor! rushing through
the dark to the hospital!
i remember the strangeness of it all.
the kitten is back, curling by my knees.
i think of all the good cats we've had
sometimes three at once like warm sandbags
in the bed at night.
he will be a good one.
i can tell.

---------------

what no granola? no birkenstocks?

NO VERMONTERS IN HEAVEN
by E. F. Johnstone ~ 1950

I dreamed that I went to the city of gold,
To Heaven resplendent and fair;
And, after I entered that beautiful fold,
By one in authority there I was told 
That not a Vermonter was there!

"Impossible," said I. "A host from my town
Have sought this delectable place,
And each must be here with a harp and a crown,
A conqueror's palm and clean linen gown
Received through merited grace."

The angel replied, "All Vermonters come here
When first they depart from the earth,
But after a day or a month or a year
They restless and lonesome and homesick appear
And sigh for the land of their birth.

"They tell of its many and beautiful hills
Where forest majestic appear;
Its rivers and lakes and its streams and its hills
Where nature the purest of water distills,
And they soon get dissatisfied here."

"They tell of ravines, wild, secluded and deep,
Of clover-decked landscapes serene,
of towering mountains, imposing and steep
Adown which the torrents exulting leap
Through forests perennially green."

"We give them the best that the Kingdom provides,
They have everything here that they want;
But not a Vermonter in Heaven abides,
A very short time period here he resides,
Then hikes his way back to Vermont!"

.