Stumbling Into Spring: NaPoWriMo 2021 - 5. April 25th through April 30th

April 25^th

Bloodroot,

evanescent,

ephemeral as flame,

opens to embrace with love the

spring sun;

shadows

of the late afternoon encroach,

and its petals fold up,

not to return

till next year.

Fleeting joys,

like mergansers winging

or winter wrens singing in the woods,

come and go before you know you experienced them;

yet these form life’s brilliant mosaic,

tiles made of hugs and smiles

which endure.

Last night’s rain

left every brand-new leaf

adorned with its own drop of water,

glinting in the momentary, cloud-embraced dawn,

reflecting infinite potential

contained in each liquid

universe.

April 26^th

The tall white shingled steeple is for sale,

a place where generations sang and knelt

in worship to a deity which felt

as cold and unforgiving as the gale

which howled above the hill and through the vale,

or summer heat enough to make them melt

who live in places Dante’s demons dwelt,

with sins enumerated in detail.

Those less than puritanic souls, long dead,

would shudder in their customary pews

when buyers very secularly tread

through apse and nave, their visions to amuse,

and married men might nightly make their bed

where pastors preached their narrowminded views.

April 27^th

A tablespoon or milliliter

measures volume, notwithstanding

temperature, itself expanding,

making accuracy fleeter

than the peskiest moskeeter;

set aside their geeky branding,

SI units aren’t demanding

of the batter or the beater.

But tablespoons, one might object,

are merely binary, base two,

which leaves us doubling to do

in fluid ounces, last I checked,

though customary names reflect

a onetime quantity of brew

poured out in small amounts, and you

with study may their roots detect.

Its possible, in cooking’s swoon,

these common measurements to mix,

which leaves the chef in quite a fix

when seasoning the blanched cardoon,

for none would toss the dish too soon;

yet echoes ring from kitchen bricks,

in anguish at fate’s knavish tricks:

“Oh, tableliter! Oh millispoon!”

April 28^th

A star fell,

just one out of billions,

and not often used to navigate,

yet as I behold the constellations rising

in their endless faceted grandeur,

the sky seems dimmer for

its absence.

April 29^th

I do not want to touch it,

that rectangle of glass

for if I do so much, it

will surely come to pass

that I will come to clutch it,

the hours to while, alas.

It makes my fingers sticky;

I cannot let it go,

my friend might think to click, he

could send a text, you know,

with jokes or puzzles tricky

or conquests he could crow.

I wish I’d never gotten

this modern piece of tech

for now I feel so rotten,

my hours are all a wreck

so now I’m surely plottin’

to wring its little neck.

April 30^th

You asked if I would be a sport

to comment on your lab report;

I read it over and I found

you seemed to say that pi are round!

Your weights were said to oscillate

‘tween noon and nearly half-past eight;

and mentioning your pendulum,

your photograph looked far from plumb;

the weight, you said, was made to swing

on chains made out of someone’s bling,

which might explain results suggesting

motion dance-like manifesting

in the line where motion seamless

ought to lead to slumber, dreamless;

summing up, your data’s gotta

lotta troublesome errata.