Rashomon in the Rectors Garden

Rashomon in the Rectors Garden

Sunday morning, and the Rector found a bagel on the ground,
  a whole bagel, unbitten, uncut, just plain,
  an oddment of a snowless January morning,
Though there were numerous sub and sandwich rolls too,
She posted only a picture of the bagel,
  this one curious zero, with comment,
"…who leaves a bagel in the Church garden?"

Here both faithful and secular saw the garden alike;
  …as a muse of their recreation,
  …as a place where city kids plant on weekends, out of doors,
  in their own neighborhood, learning Nature’s and civic values,
  …an assertion of the necessity of wildflowers and native plants,
  all too often extirpated in a modernity of herbicides and mowing machines,
  …as a place to breathe good city air and smell a sunflower,
  …as an appreciation of Nature, and the gift God’s of work,
  …as a testament to thought and responsibility right outside the Rectors office,
  …and too that the planting in the garden meant the end of Church rummage sales,
  seeing the yard’s no longer vacant,
  and that the elderly who ran it have passed on

Throughout the day friends posted comments,
Those who thought themselves comic and pious, brief but numerous;
  "Manna from Heaven?"
  "The Holy-Bread!"
  "What do you call a seagull who flies over the bay? – A Bay-gull!"
  "Easter Bagel hunt!"
One who was the volunteer chimed in,
  "I picked up a lot of those, Wednesday, midweek,"
  And I, the bird watcher, too resurrected this culprit in my own image, saying
  "I’ve seen people who feed birds – ducks and pigeons - do this,"

But of all these characters, of that ‘who’ that was, only an absence could be found,
  and then only between the lines,
Did none of us look for that intangible whom?
  manifest only as the empty presence of a human form outlined by the staff of life,
  perhaps an elderly or challenged soul,
  or a special person, as they say,
Or at least a someone who knew in which rummaging dumpster
  yesterdays bread waste waits,
Who, Winter coated, with the bags, is this?
Least of all, the unmentioned, not whether God nor bum,
  is this poor one who brought them
  needs us, the serving, most 

Ishtar (pronounced ‘Easter’)

Not that I’m out to make a point, but it’s always been a curiosity to me that the Assyrian & Babylonian Goddess of Spring was called ‘Easter.’
PS: Read this like it’s an Old Testament reading from the lectern.

Ishtar (pronounced ‘Easter’)

Then she shall walk again these fields byzantine,
  Processing, her long cloak in train,
  Converting sods to grasses green,
Refreshened, the gay and sprouting flowers
  Will unfurl their faces to the singing and the dance
Of bounding rabbits loping forth in herds uncounted,
  While newly hatched of this mornings’ gathered eggs,
Her precocious feathered broods will peck away
  The seasons passing sands from the rising eyes
Of Gaia as she wakes

You men of barren Winter,
You women of Lenten fasts,
  Know now;  
Her breasts, naked, brimming, fully laden,
  Will pour forth an abundance, a fountain of resurrection,
As shall she, a plow in the furrow of gray desolation’s wane,
  Give earth suckle with so fertile and pure a fine white rain
That even the condemned old bones of Golgatha
  Shall gather, reassemble and rise to follow her,
A joyous choir cantabile in the years rebirth
  And of life born again so precious, so anew

In the Morning

As some may know, a little more than an hour after my last post on Sunday (Fluffy's Ninth Hour) our beloved Fluffy passed away, while I held her on my lap.
This poem isn't great, but I have to post it next, for continuity's sake.
Maybe someday I'll give it a meter and rhyme upgrade.

In the Morning

Her collar and nametag worn like an armband on my wrist
The cold empty place on the bed where my shin used to warm
The saucer of milk last night she would not drink
"I called her beautiful saucer eyes,"
  She did have saucer eyes
These are the things with we mourn on this morn

The jar of her shed claws & nails,
With whiskers and scissor cut fur mats
Her dog bed matted with cat fur that we called her nest
The dozen remaining treats on the couch
These are the things with we mourn on this morn

The sound of her tag as it dinged on her dish
The mat with her name, on which we placed her bowls,
That I’m thinking of using as a floormat
In my truck ‘cause none can have her name again
These are the things with we mourn on this morn

The needle-less syringe I used to give her water on the hour
The half emptied medicine bottles in the paper bag,
  which bears her name in marker with a heart
Being asked;
  "Did you give her her insulin this morning?" in the afternoon, and
  "Did you give her her insulin this evening?" at night,
These are the things with we mourn on this morn

I lick once more the red scratches on my hand
In my mind I see her question mark tail
  Over the pink period as she walks away, 
And I remember that without the cattitude
  We would not have had a cat
For these are the things with we mourn on this day

 

Fluffy’s Ninth Hour

This one needs no preamble

Fluffy’s Ninth Hour

Het Het Het
She breathes as if a ticking clock,
A time bomb to go off
  or something soon will be done baking

Het Het Het
Sixty times a minute,
Only watching the second hand wall cock
  belies they are out of sync

Het Het Het
The labor of her breathing,
Aftermath of a diabetic shock
  from her usual insulin
After not eating
  because she was ill

Het Het Het
From a mass of dire gravity,
  leaking by it’s half life
Pleurisy in her lungs

Het Het Het
In a world become too heavy to breathe

"How old is she?"
We think ten, could be fifteen, she has old bones, not twenty

"How long have you had her?"
She was a stray,
She showed up where a men fed colony cats,
Neighbors recognized her, that’s how we know her name,
‘Round Thanksgiving – Holidays she just moved in on him, nuffa the cold,
We adopted her next Spring when she was ready to rehome

"At least you’re realistic about her options,"
They want to run a CAT scan, no pun
What part of Big Mass plus Fluids in Lungs doesn’t equal a congestive heart?

Het Het Het,
Let’s go to the vet,
Outlooks not good
But yet you could
Your timer is not set

Het Het Het
Don’t look so bad today
We’re thinking of
How much our love
Won’t let you slough away

Het Het Het
Sit on my lap dear pet
Your coat is warm
You’ll know no harm
Life’s not done with you yet

Sciamachy

Ever see Spring ghost birds on a dirty window? A seasonal offering.
Some religious overtones, you atheists will find this objectionable.
;8^P

PS: This one's for you, Julianne Heckert !

Sciamachy

There is birdsong in my ear and heart
  for a Spring compline on this sunset porch,
With storm windows still in place,
  susurrounded by an avian consort of Joyful grace

Oh!
There the glass, bright angels glow,
  of prizm rainbows distilling the suns repose,
They are Illuminati Doves of golden phoenix fire,
  tindered by the glitter dust of a pane not Spring cleaned
The feathers they bear, each drawn out,
  I can count them each a one,
United as two fans bound round an indivisible heart,
  in brushed gilt masterfully drawn
By they whose beatified old brushes
  do color Nature’s own Church panes

Oh fear,
Was Gabriel denied? Impeded in his speed?
  am I not to hear his edifying news?
Or has Raphael been blocked,
  in a crash collision with his impression,
Then to flutter off dazed, shocked,
  half cocked in the afternoon rain,
Never to baptize me to his creed?

Pine trees bend in piety to the wind,
  as

I turn behind me at a thump,
  and spark eyed wing wide talons bared
Is that bird who once
  my dreaming compline cantor was,
Now clawing in rage to cut
  an invisible rivals throat upon the storm window

He perches on a branch to see
  not me, but his adversary,
And flies once more in anger to test
  whether he or his reflection,
By might or flight, will this day best

The Warbler

While about a happy bird, I do concede this seems a tad dark. I'm not one for Goth. When birding, and I see these little yellow sunny birds, to me they prophesy the coming of June.
Anyway... Garrison Keillor doesn't publish prologues.


The Warbler

My feet in snow,
  my head inclined,
From bare branches
  he marks Spring time,
I guess I love him
  for his magic
He songs belie
  my own are tragic

Though I’ll not climb
  so high above,
He sings the spark
  I’m in need of
For he’s the steel
  to my flint,
His striking there
  flares up a glint,
A spark ephemeral
  to spy,
It’s fleeting quicker
  than a sigh,

Again he chants
  from start to end,
I’ve no inner
  tinder to tend,
Yet I’ll return
  again in time
To watch him bloom 
  buds while he chimes

A Poem of Rates and Sales

This is a real picture of my Dad, that's him, "at work," circa Jan 2006.

A Poem of Rates and Sales

I met Dad, next to last in the day care hall,
We drove to the Food Emporium where
We got meat loaf, mac’n cheese for dinner,
The receipt fell on the kitchen table

This, the benefit of Bobbie, Dads friend,
  his lady friend of twenty or more years,
  (my Mother having died in ‘79)
Who’s in Florida the week with her friends,
Time was she took him also, before his
  Alzheimer’s
Got worse, thus I took a week off and I’m
  serving Dad duty in Connecticut,
  running errands on the list she left me,

Mornings, breakfasts, he liked animal shows,
Especially the parabolic shots
  of four legged cats, lemurs, in Spanish,
Which we neither understood, but over
  coffee and a Thomas’s with red jam,
He understood, laughter starting his day,
While I enjoyed him just enjoying,
  before we left for day care,

Dinner meant news time, his response to which,
  thanks to the confluence of Alzheimer’s
  and low blood sugar, was to annoy me,
  endlessly every evening this week,
By clicking around the channels, red faced,
Rebutting with invectives what ever
  the cable whack-a-mole talking heads said,
So, tonight I left the off the tube, and set 
  mousily to microwave our dinners,
That’s when he found the grocery receipt,
  next to the do list, conspiring with the
  junk mail!

I knew, not good,
Dad had audited bills
  and balanced invoices and receipt for thirty years,
  for AT&T,
And I knew what he could do stray claims accounts…

"Uh huh. You gotta watch them like a hawk. They’ll always try to pull something on you. They’ll always try to sneak something in."

Ever had hair raise under your collar?
When Dad was back at work you never want
  to take things away from him,
It starts arguments, so I behaved
  and ballet danced the good son’s role
   in his folie a’ deux,

I just watched him pointing his pencil about,
  first he ticked off items on the receipt,

1. then cross checked those against the to do list,
2. and so often referred to the junk mail
3. as if the junk mail was the bulleted
4. company procedural manual

"Dad, if anyone knows how to stop them in their tracks it’s you, Dad. You’ll catch ‘em in the act. They’ll never slip a number in with you on guard."

"Dammit, they try to get’ch ya, some people got nothin’ better to do, there out there, and always they’ll God Damn…"
  the microwave dinged

  "Hey, why don’t you go wash up, we can settle these accounts later"

He looked at me like I had three heads, or,
  he was going to hit me, then got up
  and walked off to the bath to wash his hands,

I recycled the junk mail and the grocery receipt,
  and put the to do list in my pocket, 
He came back, sat down, said nothing to me,

  "You ready for dinner?"
  "Yeah."

As I poured the wine I knew him,
  he’ll be more fun again and we’ll
  watch a movie after dinner,

‘Cause,
  Life is poetry, in ones mind,
  But doggerel with kin, when kind