Rain Bop

Rain Bop

Green hides only deeper green,
raindrops playing hide and seek
in leaves that just can’t wait to be found
and we are so sick of the gray skies
and gloom: we want to go outside
but look, sadly, through streaked windows.

In dry places, people are crying for rain

We remember only tears and pain.
People sing of migraines.
Ball players toss wet balls and crawl
into dugouts, dripping with loss or victory:
what matter. We are drowning.
Levees are breaking and floods engulf fields.
We change our screen savers to desert scenes
and listen because we were told that

In dry places, people are crying for rain.

The meteorologists barely muster a smile
when they promise, that the end of the week
may hold a glimmer of blue.
What is blue? we ask one another, having forgotten.
It is green without yellow, a wise one speaks.
It is hope without ribbons. It is knowledge:

In dry places, people are crying for rain.



See http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2011/05/12/WDPoeticFormChallengeTheBop.aspx

April 30 last day leaving

This poem has been removed. Please email me if you want to read it.

April 29 Ode

Ode to Spring

Even willows drape yellow.
Red maple buds
Burst now, suddenly open, green.

Sixty-three degrees
and girls hear the call of their skin--
Show me show me show me--
prance around in tiny shorts
while boys jump off rocks into chill pond.

Nearby, peepers start up chirping
and salamanders follow their lovingly built
crossing, avoid being squashed beneath tires.

Amherst buzzes with it: the light!
Forsythia! Rhododendrons and daffodils!
No stopping it now.

April 28 without something

Without the train’s whistle,
I wouldn’t look up every so often,
asking, what’s that music?
Is an organ playing somewhere?
I wouldn’t think of Emily Dickinson
hearing the same train a little ways
down the track, some time ago
or remember the retired librarian
who gave a little wave and a smile,
and jumped in front of the train.
Without the train’s whistle,
I’d likely forget the music of distance.

April 27 In the this of that

In the clamor of innocence
longing to be knowledge,
unwary children jangle like spare change
in the pocket of God’s cargo pants.

Forgotten hitchhikers climb pillars
of broken thumbs, trembling with error,
squashing berries of lust.
At last the hush of razors.

April 26 Lead or follow

Marriage: a dance


His daily whims
take the family
through complex choreography.
We become a team of ginger
rogerses (backwards and in high heels).
Today he thinks we should move to Utah,
ski all winter and trap stallions
in the spring. Tomorrow
he’ll decide a hammock
for our little yard will suffice.
We count our blessings
his father made him fear boats.

April 25 Falling

Birds falling from the sky
Trees balancing on branches
Roots like antennae scraping clouds
Searching for a signal where
where is the nest
With its pale blue eggs
Has your vacuum inhaled them,
Sent them through the void
Like a message to the conductor
Of the train twisted orchestrally?
Clap, ye martyrs.