A Firefly Poem

At Risk of Sentiment

1

She

A lighting bug in Florida

There

but shouldn’t be.

2

Flashes outside

a darkened lanai

above

saw palmetto and bamboo.

3

She

a Tennessee firefly

synchronizing its flashes

on cycle with fertile glowworms.

4

No longer a Japanese light display

trapped under yards of mosquito netting

she could almost

climb through taped windows.

5

She

watching wild pigs

come to a highway’s edge

to feed on crisp white sprouts.

6

There used to be more butterflies, she said,

There

Whether she should be

Or not.

Vegetable Planting Time

Feeling Earth 

Gelatin grew

in her tomato bucket,

maybe because she placed it

under a rain spout--

 Sodden soil

turned to rubbery plastic

black Jello speckled with white.

The plant grew wiry, thinned,

pushing through silicone soil

like pectinned grape all fruit jelly

or black cherry yogurt.

She kept repeating the image

smelling its changing forms

imagining flavors and tastes

and placing her finger in the soil

again and again,

until it bounced back,

repulsed by the spring.

Adding one poem to another!

Solitary Succulence

After rain

crushed sprouts from thinned beds

still smell like cantaloupe.

In a Garden on C Street

Crushed sprouts

from a thinned bed

smell like cantaloupe.

But pansies

clear away tears

cutting through snow

like sunlight

through a prism.

Mostly, though,

pansies help me sleep

on long nights

broken

by train whistles.

Out my window,

I still see them

rising toward the moon.

A Flower Poem for Cinco de Mayo

This poem really did grow out of my attempts to learn how to care for an orchid!

Overfull

She felt empty

but it was a just

a cylindrical hole

the size of a biscuit

or a slice of polenta

covered with

Lambrusco cream

easy to fill with food

or a large bottle cork

like the one she saw

on a friend’s kitchen

cupboard keeping

penne from spilling

to the floor.

Perhaps the empty feeling

meant she was overfull

ready to spill

or sprout roots

like the orchid without soil.

Fibrous

nearly weightless

water drained through

to the bottom plate.

The only way

she could tell

when to water

was to lift it,

plant and all

from its pot

to see damp mulch

clinging to

a pseudobulb.

Later she knew

she would learn

to water by weight

letting its load

lighten

before filling it up

but until then

she carefully placed it

back in its pot

fitting it

as tight as a cork.

Flower Poems for Spring

Daiva's Flower

or A Japanese Gangster Paints Flowers

In Takeshi Kitano’s Fireworks

Sunflower lions smile

bright yellow and green

with infinite centers of seeds

like grains of sand through a microscope.

Grained gold,

speckled with green

sunflowers beam

stretching upward in summer heat.

They lined our garden once

shading lettuce

shooting fire above the leaves.

I don’t remember if we roasted the kernels

but I can taste the sun

when memory says we did

Salty crackle, sweet crumble

like a coffee cake topping

I sometimes smell

when walking across sandy soil

where sunflowers roar.

Aunt Audrea’s Flower

In pictures you smile down at West Virginia ravines:

New River Gorge

Grand View

Or wave from burnished leaf-covered hills

but your face shines brightest among roses.

I can see you blushing pinks and reds

in Ritter Park’s rose garden. Or it might

have been Cypress Gardens with its clock

tower and choreographed water skiers.

In memory, you sit on a stone wall

along rows of velvet rose bushes--

A flower yourself,

your gardenia dress dances,

its full skirt keeping time in the breeze,

rhythmic crinoline bursting like Florida hibiscus.

Sitting on a cool patio

smelling sulfur from salty sprinklers

(water for hard green spiked grasses)

I watch you laugh,

your head pulled back in joy

your eyes smiling at us all,

And,

at least in memory,

we all smile back

wishing we too had such perfect roses to share.