Summer Wanes

Autumnal contraction of sunlight

Squeezes the day at both ends

Compression relentlessly shortens

Gold that soul’s pain mends

Shining rays’ inexorable constriction

Depression of darkness portends

Ebb

Trees’ barely perceptible de-greening

Ebb of verdant vibrancy

Lushness incrementally drains

Life leeches slowly from limbs

Silent yellowing testimony

Dry with season’s perpetual march

Toward exhibitionist flame-out

Grandiose flamboyant finale

Ritualistic disrobing

For season’s hibernation

Year’s end suspended animation

Haute Couture

Moth fashion plates

Boycott runway strut

Neglect narcissistic fanfare

Camoflague nouveau ensembles

Anonymous in courtyard corners.

Gowns of elaborate tapestry

Retiring denizens’ attire

Muted maroon damask

Chocolate velvet layered

Lace-edged artist burn-out

Served designer’s creative fancy

Crowned jauntily in

Fuzzy umber beret

Nature’ haute couture rendering

The Cloak

Invisible cloak of faux composure

Drapes her shoulders daily

Methodically navigating her day

Following orders, completing tasks

Encouraging patience

Supporting calm, reason.

Internal reality differs.

Yin to yang

Hovering perpetually one breath

Single wayward thought

From suffocating sobs

Palpitating panic

Fingernails clench, clutch the cloak

Responder

Summoned psychically by her longing

Visceral need for nature’s healing

Solo robin greets her repeatedly

Fence-sitting, watching, waiting

Leisurely pacing, pecking at the turf.

Sky Sketch

Fiery scarlet burst

Furiously forecasting night

Hovers low on the horizon

Casting trees, bare-limbed black

Into stark, stunning relief

Red, orange concentrates centrally

Suffuses, pointing earth and sky

Radiantly tinted

Beyond charcoal sketched woods.

Limbo

Limbo

No back-bending feat

Musical bar-lowing contest

Rather purgatory

Painful pin-sitting waiting

Present, future held tightly

Controlled in others’ hands

Mind-bending the solution

Turning from doom prediction

Twisting away devil despair

Inch stealthily under each day

Taking care not to dislodge the bar.

Reconstitution

Wrapped in hugs, she comes fully alive

Parts of her spirit long dormant

Shed hibernation, waken

Extent of her slumber unrealized

Until loving touch rejuvenates

No fairy Prince Charming tale

Disney not filming here

Deprivation temporarily lifted

Warmth of fierce tender hugs

Pour salve into soul’s gaping wounds

Self, freeze-dried, reconstituted

Humanity, temporarily, regained.

Visiting Hours

Peering out

Through double paned window

Mentally, she beckons.

Imaginally scatters bird seed

Summons critters

Of forest, or fowl

Whistles softly

Cajoling

Nature to visit

Brighten her bleak

Meager view

Necessity

Cultures collide and clash

Inhabitants of worlds

From universe far, far away

Break daily bread

Jointly while away hours.

“Outside” paths never intersected

Currently inextricably intertwined.

Foreign histories

Indecipherable values

Gibberish perspectives

Oil to each other’s water.

Commonalities are sought and examined

Occasionally, shockingly, discovered.

Human companionship,

Basic necessity for survival

Melds lives, blends stories

Creates compiled anthology.