They paddle with staccato feet
In powder-pools of sunlight,
Small blue busybodies
Strutting like fat gentlemen
With hands clasped
Under their swallowtail coats;
And, as they stump about,
Their heads like tiny hammers
Tap at imaginary nails
In non-existent walls.
......
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
......
Hoping to catch your eye
Circling around you, oh my
Butterfly, butterfly, come into the light
Oh, what a beautiful sight
Flying so gracefully
Into the sky, the butterfly
Trying to catch a butterfly
Fly, fly, fly, butterfly
There he sets upon the mums
I'm having so much fun
......
The kitchen's old-fashioned planter's clock portrays
A smiling moon as it dips down below
Two hemispheres, stars numberless as days,
And peas, tomatoes, onions, as they grow
Under that happy sky; but though the sands
Of time put on this vegetable disguise,
The clock covers its face with long, thin hands.
Another smiling moon begins to rise.
We drift in the small rowboat an hour before
......
Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
......
exotic sunsets
in yellows peaches and golds
of the farewell days
fading of splendor
that colors the earth and sky
day's forget-me-not
forever moments
make up a sunset story
......
Diamonds in the waves
'til by and by sea kissed sky-
Many shades of blue.
Honeyed day of the roses
tangled on pathways of life.
Sweet strawberries wild,
birds screech ere cricket twilight-
Yellow Saturday.
Hoarse frogs on the lily pads
......
Redwoods cloaked in green
home to golden birds, singing
up in true blue skies
So ancient and prodigious
hailing the stars and the moon
Redwood rosy morn
redwood soaked in the sunset
with silent breezes
Lord of the dark green forest
......
I’ve been around for a long time
I have seen a lot of things
I have seen you
When you were a small child enchanted by how wonderful I made the night sky
When you went to the mountains and spent the whole night looking up at me
When you look out your window and think about how expansive I really am
People look up at me
They look towards me and envision their dreams
......
On dawn skies, peaches
drifting by sable shadows
at coastal sand dunes
Precious gold between my toes
Blue roses on the wild sea
Fading stars, jewels
Turquoise at the horizon
Citrine golden hour
of the fresh breath of the wind
......