Red Birds

Beneath heavy, darkening skies, the
canvas of green, white, gray, off-white
is punctuated by red, first a flash here and
a small spot there, then reds, reds of every
shade, an ocean of reds teaming with reds,
a heavenly host of reds soaring, stopping,
hopping, bouncing, walking, prancing.
Then a sharp whistlewind, a crack of
branch-like wood, and the reds shift into
coordinated motion, simultaneous
eruption, then calm, quiet, long periods of
seeming inactivity, followed by short
but intense bursts of motion, movement,
independence suddenly folded into a
unity of red, red.

A roar bursts forth from the un-treed stands,
and the St. Louis Cardinals win 4-2.

The Cunning Poets Society poem-prompt for May is “birds.” No stipulation was made as to whether or not it was birds of the flying variety. I attended the Cardinals baseball game Thursday, they did indeed beat Florida 4-2, and I got inspired.

Photo courtesy of Photobucket.

Roses

I’m frowning.
The clay clings to the shovel;
I have to keep scraping it off because
otherwise all it does is cling more and
then it cakes up and then I really
get frustrated. I keep stopping to
scrape and soon my hands and feet are
coated in dirt, the blacks of top soil and
the dark browns of something called
composted cow manure and the
billions of atoms of peat moss covering
me and sticking to the dirt smears on
my jeans and t-shirt. As soon as I wipe
sweat from my face I know I’ve smeared
dirt there too because I can taste it.

I push the shovel down into black dirt
then through a mix of blacks and grays
and finally the tan of solid hard-packed
Missouri clay that is soft and pliable as iron.
Digging in clay is like digging in a tan
brick, a chip here and there but generally
just forget it. But the hole is now deep
enough and filled with enough good
stuff to get this rosebush off to a fair
start, this bush that will produce a flower
named Janet of pinks and ivories and
perhaps salmon. Three feet away sits
another rose, this one named
Christopher Marlowe like that friend of
Will and it writes Renaissance plays while
it waits patiently for its hole too.

All I
have
to do
is dig
and
scrape
and
smear
and
wipe
and a
hole
is
dug.

Nancy Rosback, Lord High Executioner of the Cunning Poet Society, provided the poetry prompt for April to all of us cunning poets. The prompt was to write a poem based on the first thing that came to mind when you heard the word “Dig.” Since I had five rosebushes, a lilac and a dozen perennials waiting to be planted, I knew what I had to write.

The Cunning Poet Society was founded by Nancy on Facebook. Our motto is "I'd rather be a cunning poet than a dead poet."

Panes

Glance, leftward, from the screen, and
see, refracting through the pane, a
building, a wall of marble and glass; a
cloud of fog floating from
the smoker’s bench and
dissipating through a tree, an oak,
most likely;
a sky of blue beyond.

Another, leftward but different,
glance, different screen, past
my shelf of books anticipating being
read, to the pane, through the pane, to
holly, magnolias, river birch, cherry,
garden, across the fence to the
neighbor next door;
a sky of blue above.

Two panes, two skies: reminders of
the paned sky within.

"Eastern Washington," photograph by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission.

(This poem was written for the March offering of the Cunning Poets Society, led by nAncY of Poems and Prayers. The prompt was to write either about something you really like or about something happening around you when you are writing. I chose the latter; what's usually happening around me when I write -- at work and home -- is what can be seen through windows.)