Why Did the Chipmunk Cross the Road?

Why Did the Chipmunk Cross the Road?

A Sunday morning in the Zendo,
Doing his discourse, Roshi asked,
 “This time of year, late August, you see so many,
  They scuttle out, they run back,
  Another scuttles out, and runs back,
  Why do many run across this time of year?”

He didn’t ask me directly,
But I always heard his koans
  As meant for me to know

And he was right,
  Back and forth between Woodstock,
Many times on the road,
  I’d see them run out before the car,
Turn back to the safety of the brush with a squeak,
  Out before the car, back even more quick

And there were so many, every hundred yards
  Another flattened chipmunk pelt, these little tiny rugs,
Some in different positions or attitude,
  A tell-tale red gut splatch by the fresh,
Too often another chipmunk sized spot on the pavement
  One tire circumference down the way,
And on so in succession, fading ghostlike
  Down the lane

Imagine, so small, young, roadside, in the weeds,
  Having crossed the road,
Comes a rumble! Thunder! Loud noise! Wind!
  Storm! A Storm! Got to run home!
Out in the street – Terror!
  Back in the brush – Terror!
And no, we don’t always make it back to the bush,
  Running to safety, meeting death

This was around the time I told him I was leaving,
Roshi asked me, “Where are you going?”
  I answered,
“My Father sold the house, but he’s kept an apartment for my younger brother,
  He’s going back to school in September, I’m going to stay there”

The Great Blue Heron of Basho’ Pond

The Great Blue Heron of Basho’ Pond

Sunday and Roshi began his discourse;
  “Who has seen the Great Blue Heron of Basho’ Pond?”
An uncommon challenge, his sparing us
  The usual inscrutable old Chinese Koan

For days after I could only imagine
  That magical avian demigod,
Likely more Pokemon than bird,
  Its blue feathers coating the sky,
Its phoenix godhead blazing to burn away the
  False facades of Nature,
In itself, the more I imagined, deeply ornate,
  Flying in MC Escher tessellations,
Iconic and mystifying,,
  Heart of its own Tibetan Mandala  

Thought I, dreaming on, ignoring,
  Tibetans build their Mandalas of sand,
Working sometimes months in detail,
  Only to ceremonially brush all away

Until I met the Heron, and it asked me,
  “What are you doing here?” and
“Get you to market and earn your keep!”
  That’s what an iconic Heron says

See, our ‘Basho’s pond’ was a real pool,
  Swamped out behind an earthen bridge up the hill,
Made with dirt leftover from when
  Bulldozers leveled the baseball field
And dammed the mountain stream,
  The lot was once a summer camp

Sitting on that bridge,
  Patience and time always dissolve my constructions,
I saw it walk out from the swamp bottom,
  Punks and reeds,
It wore a mange, it watched back its shadow,
  Throat twitching as it practiced to swallow
Basho’s popcorn tadpoles, which
   Surely he’d come up from the river for

All in all, just an ordinary bird,
  Defying Old Roshi’s grand gestures and words,
Molting feathers testified to a true physique
  That relieved me of all excessive mystique,
In skinny yellow boots,
  Standing knee deep in the creek,
Pointing his beak to where today
  Are all the heavens we need seek

After my scolding he flew off,
  Back to the Esopus, no doubt

I also saw Basho’s Mink, carried
  A green frog in his mouth,
     Frog legs for dinner -
        (mizu no oto)

Smiling Kitty Purr and Rest

The Point, or ‘Oh Smiling Kitty Purr and Rest’

While you lay upon my chest,
You pet like paw upon my cheek,
  Oh smiling kitty, purr and rest

As I do yours, you’re stroking mine,
You do not mean to be unkind,
  While you lay upon my chest

Yet your sharp claws you will not mind,
As they leave red scratch marks behind,
  Oh smiling kitty, purr and rest

I clip your claws each several weeks,
Then all soft leather meets my cheek,
  While you lay upon my chest

For which I give encouragement,
Feeling no painful irritant,
  Oh smiling kitty, purr and rest

With pet love you are re-anointed,
(Until your claws again grow pointed)
  While you lay upon my chest,
Oh smiling kitty, purr and rest

A Rhyme with Ukelele

A Rhyme with Ukelele

When the Dashboard Jesus
  Met Hula Girl,
He had not known of
  Love in his world,
Until she serenaded him,
  On her cigar box mandolin

He had believed, he thought, his end,
  Would he’d again be crucified,
He’d not prepared for this, today,
  Now listening, he softly cried

Topless from South Pacific heat,
  Her grass skirt trimmed above her feet,
Her hair and lei bloomed as a garden,
  She bore no need or thought for pardon,
Her eyes adored, cracked cheek lips smiled,
  As he fell for her wholesome wiles

For all the love he’d preached of,
  Whole World Wide,
Stood enbodied, whole,
  Returned to him,
Beatified, now by his side,
Love,  incarnate,
  His Hula Bride

When the Murder Began

When the Murder Began


It is perhaps the most repulsive thing to imagine,
More likely to induce vomiting
   Than an appreciation of their predicament

Yet that’s what they were squawking about,
My not having set the alarm on a Summer Saturday,
  They having roused me now anyway

Too see, maybe, thirteen raucous crows, perching,
All flapping their wings with a cackle and caw
  In the old oak tree across the street

Under the boughs of which lay
The remains of a dead of an Opossum,
   Long since flesh and bone broken out in entrails

Thanks to Friday night revelers
And the early Saturday shift workers not
  Feeling the need to steer anymore

The crows tried repeatedly descending to it,
A claw scratch or a peck, they were risking their necks,
  As always another half-awake car came to drive them away

Pity for crows is not my passion, but then
They could keep this up all day, so
  I stepped out doors, when by rights I should have been

Watching cartoons with coffee, the goal
Of every Baby-Boomer on a Saturday AM, but I
  Got from my pickup my rusted coal shovel

I hand held up traffic while I scraped up that offal corpse,
Risking its stain backstopping with an untied sneaker,
  Then tossed the foul guts, grit and all on the neighbor’s lawn

And THAT was when the murder began

How to Be Old

How to Be Old

Birthdays are not meant for you,
They are for friends, your family,
  Your pets and little ones too,
So let them candle, cake, and sing,
Today is fleeting, taken wing,
  And tomorrow,
What love they bear, they may not bring

No, birthdays are not meant for you,
They are meant for friends, for family,
  Who seeing you age, groan long of tooth,
More treasure their own health and youth,
And glibly serve, denying the truth,
  Their Martini’s have too much Vermouth

Their birthdays too are not for them,
When comes their turn for misery,
  For that day you pander on them, you wrinkled old goof,
Boasting your fair health and youth,
And glibly serve, denying your truth,
  Your dentures have slipped from your mouth

(Or worse, that you’ll not confess you can’t write couplets
Without the bathos of hackneyed eye-rhymes)

So, you hardened gnarly old Oak,
Consider yourself lucky, whether or not
  Your balding hair has fallen with your autumn leaves,
That in curiosity of fossilized things
We’ve not as yet cared cut you down,
  Then to count your dendrochronic rings.

Kimono Dragon

Kimono Dragon


We rolled on off the Chappy Ferry
  And kept on driving straight –away,
We made no turns in either way,
  But before we came to the Dike Bridge
We turned a left, drove up the ridge,
  And parked ourselves in the parking lot
Of that Far East island garden plot,
  A gardener’s playground called ‘Mytoi’

My love and I, both hand in hand,
  Strolled up its lush and several paths,
My thoughts rose high as clouds above,
  Which made her and I laugh,
While she ‘oo-ed at the late camellia blooms,
  I looked for love’s shade garden grove,
With a bench or stump or low stone wall
  Where we could sit, and make my move

We walked out from the shaded woods
  To the bright sunlight of glade and pond,
The waist of which was girded by a bridge,
  Beneath two Japanese Torii arch,
I saw on it, half across its mound,
  Our romantic spot at last was found!

We wandered up onto the span,
  She was my girl, I was her man,
She moved in close, I closed in too,
  About to kiss, we nose to nose,
When in the sunlit soup below
  Something primal - something scaly - swam up,
And at us two, it smiled!
  “What the fuck is that!”

She shrieked, I freaked, we pointed down below,
  At the monstrous thing paddled to and fro,
What is this beast? We did not know,
  It seemed Godzilla influenced, Japanese in origin,
The pond’s ‘Kimono Dragon’ was our stress relieving pun,
  As, after our initial shock,
He reminded us of a dog, who
  Wants his stick or tennis ball thrown,
While he happily adored us
  “Well, whatever it is, it’s friendly!”

After our walk, we asked the girl at the gate,
“That’s our Charlie! He’s a snapping turtle,
  I feed him heads of kale on my lunch break,
  He’s soooo friendly, and he’s vegan!”

Years since, when back on Chappy island,
  We return to Mytoi, bringing
Salad leaves to toss by hand
  To our old smiling turtle friend,
Yet if you stop on by with greens,
  Remember – do not hold out those leaves or linger,
Snapping turtles aren’t smart,
  And he could bite off your finger!

A Kingbird on the Throne

A Kingbird on the Throne


On the weather vane, it’s running down,
Splotches white splat on the ground
  for a Kingbird makes his presence known,
Wherever he has chosen his throne

A dapper fellow, the Eastern King,
In a shiny blue coat he tucks his wings in,
  no Bigger than a jay, yet tall and lean,
His front is linen white, he keeps his shirts clean

Good birding is the Eastern Kingbird,
Most often he’s on a perch near water, from where
  he Sallies out, taking insects on the wing,

Then returns to his perch, again to do the same thing

He is a bird of exceptional will,
I’ve seen crows and blue jays mob to run off raptors,
  yet the Kingbird flies singly at hawks,
Nipping tail quills, expelling banshee squawks

He is also a Casanova of exceptional skill,
While he’s flirting with his mate, when in courting often will
  sing a Squeaky serenade from his tree redoubt,
And when she takes a wing, he chases her about

I’ve not known Kingbirds to hunt much in yards,
While not un-common, it appears un-royal
  to see Him poach our insect game,
Thus (his decree), our yard’s annexed in his domain

For whatever he sees, it is his,
And wherever he goes, his it is,
  as we Know because he’s claimed and marked it
With royal white globs of great Kingbird shit

Panic in the Park

Panic in the Park

If you take lunch on a sunny park bench,
You must take care and be sure to entrench
Your french fries while they’re still fresh and warm,
Dark eyes about are planning you harm

A poor panhandler, seeming, he,
As innocent as the pollinating bee,
Milking your pity, you deign throw him one,
Thinking, surely, there’s no harms done

Naw, that’s how the git ya!

Before that French fry hits the ground
From everywhere and all around
EVERY pigeon comes flying down,
You fear in this gray wave you’ll drown

A Tsunami tide of pigeon wings,
Beaks and black eyes cover everthing,
Your fries between your legs you clench,
As a bird next to you on the bench

Distracts you with a peck on the finger,
It’s too late now, too long you’ve lingered,
While another beaks your French fry package
And tosses them all as far as he can manage

Your French fries! Flying all around!
Not one of them will hit the ground,
And I think that pigeon has a knife!

  So, time to run,
A French fry is not worth your life

Potato Chip Inspector

Potato Chip Inspector


Wherever we play on the beach,
  We keep belongings well in reach,
Or like a pick purse up he’ll creep,
  Potato Chip Inspector!

There after, when we go to swim,
  We bury snack chips deep within
Our beach bags, ‘cause we’re onto him,
  Potato Chip Inspector!

In orange boots and gray streaked sleeves,
  Up tentatively sneaks the thief,
His neck extends, and who is he?
  Potato Chip Inspector!

You might call him a herring gull,
  You ought chastise him “Scat, beach rat!”
‘cause he knows where your chips are at,
  Potato Chip Inspector!

I only glanced away a sec,
  And he was in with a lightning peck,
Now potato chips fly everywhere!
  Potato Chip Inspector!

So if you bring a picnic lunch,
  Don’t toss him some, such thoughts expunge,
Or with his friends, the whole damn bunch –
  Potato Chip Inspectors!

How Does the Goldfinch

How Does the Goldfinch


How can the goldfinch stand on thistle?
  They are so sharp,
Even through these garden gloves of leather
  Do they smart

He’s come to test that first purple bloom,
  A Queen’s crown, upon the head of a jagged weed
That looks to be built more of broken jade than plant,
  I need not touch it again to test

How do his toes between her razor tines so easy fit?
His feet show no bother, does he even mind it?
  Perhaps his thistle loves him, as every year

Their assignation reconvenes in July’s heavy weather,
Her barbs become floss for his tiny talons,
  An innocent coupling only Darwin could explain

And yes I know he’s a him, see the vibrant yellow coat he wears?
  It’s fluorescent as the highlighter pens the High School kids will use
To mark, like this one,
  Certain emphatic passages in poems

And his true mate is of a greener hue than he,
  Though not so green as the thistle, and
She will not come before his cue,
  Which is not forthcoming

For Goldfinches are particular, they wait before nesting,
For the thistle to be ripe feed for nestlings,
  Which is not yet

Having fore-played her diadem for seeds, he has decided,
Proverbially, to wait more time upon these green bananas,
  And with such in chatter to his true mate, he is off

  and I still wonder,

How does the goldfinch stand on thistle?
No secret he reveals now,
  In the sing-song parting of his whistle