“Corsica Sunset” by Leonid Afremov
sienna dusk folds itself
crumpling clouds along vast
orange seams briefly blazing
beneath the precipitous night
From my book Bohemian Scents
Nature
All posts tagged Nature
“Dance of Wildflowers” by Erin Hanson
blue damask skies
leafy green upholstery
bright flowered carpets
nature’s handiwork
a seasonal aesthetic
divinely designed
“Bumblebee at Springtime” – Artist Unknown
fuzzy and fat with spring nectar
industrious colonists ruled by a queen
hive intelligence highly evolved
roles strictly prescribed to conform
with a gender-based preordination
enslaved to the purpose of order
a collective community organism
bright yellow blaze warns the world
their intentions are deadly serious
complex unique comb-and-brush legs
fit to gather the gametes freeborn
among gardens and foodcrops
these life-seeding elements
carried like cargo from hither to yon
in precarious flight under unlikely
undersized wings whose exertions
emit pleasant seasonal music
the falsetto hum Rimsky-Korsakov
brought forth with chaotic tempos
these wretchedly wonderful creatures
the stars in this opera of nature
“Himalayas” by Grażyna Smalej
striving for the summit
the capstone who laughs
granite bleached by the sound
rumbling confident tumbling
through temples of glaciers
leaving humans disabused
of their impudent dreams
grandeur belongs to this
rarefied realm where no
purpose runs shallow where
pride is reserved to deep
eons of unsullied motives
though now and then men
may ascend their adventure
their destiny rarely will rise
much above the repichnia
marking the burrows of worms
From my book Ephemera
“Mountain Haze” by Bill Davidson
this wilderness
teaches tranquility
joy found in freedom
that comes to the lost
without compass
or maps no agenda
no time but the time
to explore to imagine
directions toward
everything possible
everything needed
this wilderness
too late discovered
impassive impatient
it should have told
eager young bones
plangent tales of antiquity
given its wisdom
to years yet unlived
not stand wasting itself
upon calcified dreams
and abandoned ambition
“Icy Lake” by Janet James
cold hard edges of winter
recede from a slow nearing sun
ice diminishes
clarity ousts opaque finishes
surfaces find their reveal
living waters
at long last exhale
lakes and millponds
released from their
three moons of torpor
no longer incumbent
on holding their seasonal breath
come again now to quicken
in rippling submission
to mountain-sent winds
casting choppy reflections
in caricature of the sentient
clouds set to oversee
osprey and heron
return to their bars
frigid shadowy shallows
emergent with coldblooded
fish coming out of
their wintery lethargy
stirred by the hooting
and hollering voices ashore
lucky folks who a year ago
chose today’s date
in the age-old tradition of
ice-out day calendar lottery
“The Colors of Nature” by Stefania T Menegozzo
I’ve used the phrase often
not with small purpose
when nature resplendent
unfolds into view
breathtaking with grace
where bluebonnet skies
clutching billowed chiffons
meet with lavender rolls
that upholster the earth
between sepia seams
edging emerald forests
and purple-gray foothills
ascending cool slopes
capped by eggshells and pearls
where air has clean taste
scrubbed by fingers of breeze
and waters clear smell
sparkling salted or pure
to imbibe and intoxicate
quickening species
robust and refreshed
through connection by brisk
elemental comingling
of molecules built from
stray bits of far stars
coalesced by the livening
rays of the sun
From my books Range of Motion and Legacies (vol. 1)
“Playing Cards in Fryeburg Maine” by Eastman Johnson
Sensing mild adventure
My spring forest beckons
Boughs like green-handed arms
Overhead sweep me in
Crackling twigs underfoot
Start critters to scurrying
Darting through shimmering
Figments of latticework
Sun-woven shadows
Cast down upon air fairly
Pungent with pine-scent
And redolent bark
All the while looking
For traces of passage
Among mossy trunks
Around angular boulders
Half or more never seen
Dry icebergs that jut up
From brown-needled beds
Sprouting tussocks of turf
Alert for the odd bit
With color or form
Suggestive of artifact
Waylaid by history
Bull moose and whitetail
Track snowmelt-charged streams
Coursing rocky treed foothills
Where smugglers annulled
Prohibition by hauling
With oxen-drawn sledge
Furtive freightloads of spirits
Canadian contraband
Routes marked by ruins
Crude stopover shacks
Rotten planks overgrown
With woodland encroachment
Local lore hints one such
Way-station stood up
Right here on my land
Though no one knows where
My crown-antler Bowie
Hacks passable trails
Through vines thick as thumbs
Sturdy saplings like pickets
Slow progress until one good
Yank frees a fanned clump of
Maidenhair ferns whose roots
Tangle with rust-crusted chain
My ironwood staff
Pokes and prods fertile earth
Tracing widening arcs
That stop at a massive
Rock shelf cantilevered
Across the slope face
Sharply steepened above
A good twenty feet long
The ledge caps a space
Dense with thickets of
Buckthorn and bittersweet
Grappling to fill every inch
I poke horizontally
Jabbing lush verdure
And jump from a thrill
When I hear report back
Telltale thumps of some
Hollow-backed wood
Well concealed from the eye
Tamping down my excitement
I vow to return armed with
Counterblade loppers and
One-eighty lanterns
Once autumn drops leaves
In hobbling back down
All my pain burns more viciously
Scorching what courage
I might draw from rousing
Inspiriting echoes
An eager mind sounds
But these thought-killing fires
Make me frequently lay-by
Without peace to wonder
How many more seasons
Will give me adventure
And finish my history
A fictional reverie from my books Range of Motion, Music of Scars and Legacies (vol. 1)
“Woodland Walk” by Niamh Slack
my sylvan soul
would lie in woodland
green touched gold
by fingered sun
here to watch the life
I left behind continue
in proud regal skin
of bear and moose
who amble in their
monarch paths to
sparkling streams
that run their cold
and clean fresh
course between the
footsteps of my
years I’d hear the
birdsong I once sang
find further voice
my legacy in chorus
with blonde swarms
of bees and zephyr
breezes slipping
through the leafy
hands of sturdy boughs
the hardy bones that
gave me posture in
my treeless youth
when learning how
to stand against
unkindness of the
urban world and dream
this time of sweet
escape to sleep upon
soft needled thatch
that beds these shady
trails where all my
never meets forever
close to creatures
feral in their peace
with God and nature
joined in mind to
help me find exquisite
blest eternal rest
From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol. 2)
“Painted Turtle” by Doug Sharpe
unlovely dignified bearing
longevity marking his shell
time and symmetry shaped
time to ponder to think
deeper down than survival
to grapple with quieter
mysteries questions of
corporeal existence to muse
he must surely have wisdom
his unhurried passage gives
pause to the river course
silences nether woods stills
forest creatures who each
give close listen attending to
even his least rasping words
such is reverence toward
age in the uncertain wild
From my book Pieces of Wine
Poesy plus Polemics 