for the love of outdoors

A poem born of the summer. And I did spend time with a honey bee or two, coaxing them out of my bouquet and listening to the tunes they hum. 

Pleasantries

The honey bee

and I

exchanged pleasantries

over a bouquet so new

he thought the blooms were still rooted.

I explained his mistake in whispers

and the rearranging of a coneflower

he had taken a liking to.

We talked about blackberries

and then the coolness

so rare in the summer tilt

of the Northern hemisphere.

He and I agreed

that the day’s clouds

would make exceptional

window-dressers since their

imaginations and mutations

were fanciful,

but elegant.

I mentioned I had seen

a butterfly

and he begged a detailed description.

“She landed on a coneflower

just near me, beside the one

I was about to pick.

Iridescent browns, orange stripes,

two blue puddles,

and a small bit missing

on the right wing.”

I never knew why he asked,

for he flew off

and I took the bouquet inside,

glad to have made the time

to exchange pleasantries

with the world on the other side

of doors.

Time Travel

I have been writing a great deal lately. Poetry, mostly. Some of it is good. Some of it is terrible. Some of it needs to brew for a while. Anton Chekhov, a successful writer, said these words that comfort my terrible poetry: “Only he is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.” Hopefully what I have chosen to post is not of that material, however.
Only time will tell.

Time Travel
The far mountain line
peeks between
the balusters
of the heavily green forest
that descends gradually
down the mountain
to a field.
My hands remember
the feeling of this moss,
still clinging to the trunks
in a desperate embrace
that has eased
into habit.
My feet recall
the rooted ways
and small
stony rubble of the
rutted
path that curves
at the tree line.
I have loved these woods,
but oh,
the breaking through,
the pushing aside
of haphazardly slapping,
grasping limbs
and that final step
to western sky,
unfiltered sun
that beams in
straight-backed
waterfalls
and edges the trees
that climb the slopes
in a paler,
brighter green,
painting scales on the slopes
with its own trees
so the mountain
can remember it was once
a dragon,
and can swallow the
hollow metal wind machines
that ride its back
attempting to break
the mountain
by ripping out her tree hair
and trying very hard
to be still in
the her exhaling
gasp that ripples
through the field
at my
feet.
I watch those oats
sway
in quiet ease
for they know peace,
and
I
want to know it
too.