Bragi's Bagatelles - 2. April 18th to April 31st

April 18

 

You could ask

for logarithms of

the square of the hippopotamus,

or discreetly derivative discrete functions

and where their apogees intersect,

but the answers are not

rational.

 

You could ask

where sparrows ought to hide,

not from their natural predators,

but exotic snakes and cats that people release

into the wild ‘cause it’s easier

to set them on the world

than to care.

 

 

You could ask

the many mute watchers

why they say nothing while we struggle

to comprehend the hostility of neighbors

who once smiled and waved every morning

but now fly the flag of

oppression.

 

 

April 19

 

The osprey and the common tern

must feel neck muscles stretch and burn,

for they must hover hours on end,

their seafood supper to discern.

 

Each bird will stoop to apprehend

a fish, and then strive to ascend

to some secluded sylvan spot

where they their manners may suspend.

 

To keep frayed nerves from getting hot,

the osprey pecks at what it’s got

withdrawn from all society,

but leaves the bones to sun and rot.

 

The tern will gulp entirely

it’s hors d’oeuvre sans propriety

and thence its first course will adjourn

to search for more variety.

 

 

April 20

 

Three sweet notes

Ring over the meadow

Beneath the watchful circling vultures,

For the white-throated sparrow celebrates the spring

Despite these ominous black shadows

Which effortlessly soar

In the blue.

 

If you look

you can see two faint stars

in the handle of the Big Dipper;

I’m told the Onondagas checked their eyes with them,

and though old age dimmed not their heart’s fire,

they only remembered

the heavens.

 

 

 

April 21

 

One white pelican

glides low across the water

caressing the waves.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Two swallow-tailed kites

wheel above the cypresses

in order to dive.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Three great blue herons

beat dark wings against white clouds,

fearless of thunder.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Four dozen ibis

flash in line under the sun,

undulating west.

 

~ ~ ~

 

White eyed vireos

flutter amongst five palm trees,

hid in abundance.

 

~ ~ ~

Six roosting peacocks

cry into the thick darkness

to become nightmares.

 

 

 

April 22

 

It wearies mind and body to contain

the age-old animosity verbose,

with which the blind religious make to stain

the present times on screen and radios

and make themselves into unyielding foes

of colors painted on the rain-lit sky,

defending laws no bible would impose –

this is the hill on which they choose to die?

 

So many other battles could they strain

to fight: disease and hunger have arose,

disaster, famine, tyranny and pain,

but what we need is unity to close

the book of life upon these and dispose

their ashes where they might forever lie;

instead they’d force us into life umbrose –

this is the hill on which they choose to die.

 

We fight to climb, the summit to attain

and scramble through the icy wind that blows

across the mountain, through the slanted rain

paralyzing fingers and the toes,

yet we will celebrate the fact we froze

if only we the darkness can defy

and shout at them, the causes of our woes,

is this the hill on which you choose to die?

 

Self-righteous ones, who think your power flows

unending, though the ages testify

that you must learn what what every despot knows:

is this the hill on which you choose to die?

 

 

 

April 23

 

You don’t need

to say a word, not one,

nor move half an inch, save to breathe in,

for I know your best thoughts ere they shine in your eyes

or your broad smile on forms full on your lips,

and it takes but a tick

to kiss you.

 

 

April 24

 

A vector is a funny beast,

in quantities from most to least

combined with a direction set

like up to down or west to east.

 

The vector’s 3-D alphabet

of i, j, k can make one sweat,

but these locate a spot in space

where planes at angles may be met.

 

Once you accept their warm embrace,

then vectors’ algebra may grace

orthogonals we’ll learn for sure,

while products cross and dot we trace.

 

The world would be forever poor,

unoriented, sans allure,

our helices would be so triste

un-vectored with abstractions pure.

 

 

 

April 25

 

I woke up

to find a million leaves

turning the maples into green clouds

while every beech branch seemed kindled in minute flames

ready to consume the whole hillside

in exuberant fire

of the spring.

 

In April,

trees briefly remember

colors to which September calls them,

with leaves born in bronze before growing serious

in adolescent green confidence

as they forget about

November.

 

In the yard,

there stands an old ash tree,

once proud and full, but now gaunt and spare

and crowded by impertinent poplar saplings

with no respect for mossy grandees

and stories to recount

of summer.

 

 

April 26

 

I always take the time to check the weather

so, unlike blue jays, I can change my feather,

though other birds can take some heed of fashion

reacting to the heat of passion.

I’ll never be the quintessential model

with disposition mostly arthropodal

because I’m certain that my epidermis

make one think I’m pachydermous.

I would not say I am a chameleon

with clothes so very Mephistophelian,

but I would gladly share my big umbrella

with another handsome fella.

 

 

April 27

 

How I arrived here, I don’t know,

the streets all look alike to me

with their cloned houses, row on row,

 

no rock, no bush, no spindly tree

stands out, so one goes oft astray,

for in this living parody

 

each residence is painted grey

designed by corporate artifice

that visitors are made to stay;

 

I can’t recall my finding this

bland intersection coming through,

but maybe if I reminisce

 

I’ll think of turns I took each day,

consider why I’ve gone amiss,

and somehow, after long delay

 

I’ll shed my mediocrity

and steer my soul a better way

to places that I’m meant to be,

 

where trees and gardens verdant grow,

and ‘neath unclouded skies might we

hold hands and learn our love to show.

 

 

 

 

April 28

 

The special exhibition of my fears

has many rooms, curated and select,

where viewers on my follies may reflect

or laugh at those impressioned souvenirs,

bright paintings of embarrassments and tears

and walls with cubist middle age bedecked,

obscure and abstract items to inspect

provoking pity at my wasted years.

Yet here and there, in some neglected space

an ornate frame encloses some sweet scene:

a memory that time cannot efface,

of sunlit April evenings glowing green

when all the world seemed given unto grace

as you and I together did convene.

 

   

 

April 29

 

There is much

that is broken in this world:

circuits, teacups, headlights and handles,

solemn treaties, ethics laws, rules against spitballs,

and not least of these are the hearts

of those who every day

suffer hate;

 

Yet I love

this beautiful old earth,

and with the dawn aspire to embrace

all the fractured and fragmented humanity,

so sad faces remember their smiles,

brothers forget old wrongs,

and we heal.

 

 

April 30

 

I make my thanks

for lettuces emerging from the soil—

just tiny points of green in sprout—

but they will bless

another afternoon as brighter foil

against bare earth as if to shout

now winter’s done!

Despite the fact they are so very small,

those rising dots are large enough

that my delight

extends to yellow violets by the wall

amidst the grass and mossy stuff,

until the sun

meanders west behind the greening hill

and supper from a season past

lies oven bound;

then does your name on its scent call me still

to hallow pleasures which at last

must end the day;

yet not those gifts for which I’m grateful, no,

for you and I have many days to grow.

 

 

April 31

 

We both know

there is no extra day

and though I wish, it’s not mine to make

one more opening for poetry in this month;

so I must yield to the calendar,

yet not concede those words

which remain.