Poetry

Most unjustly I deprecated you For being on coins, flags, insignia Feathers plucked from someone else’s headdress For depicting an us that is not us A bald figurehead hatching lie after lie But I never really saw you, did I? Their flattened likenesses were never yours Now, I see you hovering above me, now Nobody’s […]

Circle upon circle spiral over spiral each day turns and the moon follows her cycle and the earth rotates unfolding a life. This dawn light this October air this April sun are all familiar, but not quite. The familiar tempts me to not look because I think I already see. The ordinary tempts me to […]

For twenty foolish years I walked right past them, on my way through the woods to the river, assuming I was seeing all there was to be seen. Then one early spring, in the cool, deep wet of the redwood forest, Jolie came to visit. She opened my eyes to hidden wonder along the trail: […]

Don’t you know it’s too early? Can’t you see the others Still cuddled and huddled in their robes of green Crowding together against the cold, wet, wintry day Not ready yet to welcome them Or you? Why are you willing to stand so tall In radiant yellow Your brazen bugle blaring? It’s true The primroses […]

How many mornings did we break fast, together? More than I can count in the rest of my days. And how many lessons did you teach me? More than I can ever realize. How many times did you share your wisdom, Teach me to dance on your feet while holding my hands, Share your adventures […]

Out of the ashes of a year So incomprehensible In its universal tragedy But like new shoots Green and tender Sprouting in barren ground Everywhere were helpers And life went on as always With joys and sorrows Contentment and anger Behind the masks and distancing Into this new year Ever moving forward Inevitably and full […]

This is Old Mexico, land of rattle-snakes. Drifting high in the night sky, An airplane’s light illuminates the clouds. The darkness is more easily seen with light. On the low hillsides, the city sighs Palm trees hover ridiculously and majestically. Birds of Paradise guard the sidewalks Amidst disembodied laughter. A stranger in their neighborhood, I […]

The day we stormed the capitol I was out among the trees I saw the weavers weave their web I heard the vultures screech I heard we won not one but both Yet I learned we also lost Our peaches thus cut much the same And greater is the cost The day we stormed the […]

New years come and go We creatures of habit mark them, Celebrate the end of the old And beginning of the new Reminisce with grins and grimaces At what has passed And look to the next day to usher in A new life with the new dawn. But what it ushers in Is just the […]

(Just to prove I’m not a complete Humbug; best read aloud to a young one) Mr. Whiskers tentatively Poked out his snout Round the sofa leg Whiskers quivering Before, there’d been a thumping and Much clumping from up above He’d been asleep, not stirring When suddenly disturbed A whoosh of soot A loud landing “Achoo!” […]

Wearing a mask is like using your turn signals when driving. You don’t do it for yourself. You know where you’re going. You do it for others. So we all feel safe. Vincent F Peloso

It begins with that delectable tongue wrapped around mine sweet embrace Rare to find one ripe enough at first patience is rewarded–and required– then they put to shame the cacophony of late autumn apples It’s almost enough to compensate for the loss of summer’s sweet corn Carolyn Lehman December 2020