heating up

heating up, hating up, the summer's coming on.
in my town, that means closing up, fresh air
winter's memory, breezes only at the coast but this year
the coast didn't get cold enough to kill red tide
the first bloom visited in january. was looking at a page
that listed all the mass die offs so far this year. you hadda scroll
w
a
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a
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a
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a
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ay
ay
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ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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down the page for it to end.
so you can come up for air.
mostly fish kills like my hood
but when birds fall out of the sky
if feels biblical, when rivers run
red and yellow the bruises of fukishima
come to mind. and 3 flipper kids born
after chernobyl melted escape from the state
institutions they were pushed in after they rents died
from thyroid cancer to  join with sixteen beached
whales to warn us all,
once again, about the dangers of modern tech no
logy... well the air feels as tainted as a landfill
and i more fully understand  a flock's demise.

the zika virus heads north,in  pretty zebra striped carriers
but i'm impervious to their bites. at least, that's what i tell myself
when they go for you instead. i'm even having alcohol, the mead of the masses.

my four year old strawberry plants have given me
for the first time, a bumper crop. i reckon there is about a pint
with some o the berries no bigger than a bug.
the elm tree you and i began from a thumb sized seedling
wavers in the wind with fresh leaves that will cease dancing
when they reach palm sized. it's time to leave my mark
take this tree and plant it in the front yard
where the leaves will turn brown in winter , litter
the street, the neighbor's yards, the pond, skitter
like a mice caravan across your daughter's path and
the delight of that memory you carry
unable to transmute it into
 a sunbeam on water lily.
 he neurons fire that particular scent
so you  smile. we reach
from one season to the next. to  walk together
you wearing her face, i wearing another's
you've only seen in photograph and speak of.
mothers-how often we fail, how nothing but fierceness
remains when the labor is over.















egret







**8

some old fleshtime friends have contacted me lately
in retrospect i saw them coming in two flocks of egrets
and a lone heron flying a muted, gray sunset.  i used to see portents
in birds when i was insane and held a knife against my throat i
 dared you to step closer and take from me.
you brought out the swat team, big ass monster truck and all.
it was on the news.
almost went viral.

















********************8))0







the symbols are mandala  i would
treat them as such.
















^^^^^*******










where o where will the easter lillies thrive?
they fill the stations of the cross, surviving angles of
a living room. so little to say, so many ways to say it.

the neighbors are fighting , much like you and is
when we were younger and full of passion. now pain
has softened us, replaced words with hallelujahs.

the sun is a harsh molten marble moving miasmicly into the night.

ollie, born adolf, adopted name olaf, wanders
greening lawns. across the way, a couple argues in espanol
a beer pops in the evening's grace.  it is friday.
ofla has caught somtehing
he does not know how to handle.

 his black patch, consistent pounce
and debonaire munching of lemon grass
reminds me of a fight
we once had about how to make
 a garden, or what, exactly
 october means.


but now it's time to rake the mulch up, lay bedding
and finish this thing i began. civilizing the teen.
all you have to do is outlast it.