Driving alone

  Driving Alone

I drive alone

From the mountain to the ocean splash.

Heavy traffic on the queen’s highway,

Will no one let me in?

Take the opening.

Grab the chance

To squeeze between the cars

All moving so slowly

In their lonely line.

Slip out of line

And again down the mountain.

I drive alone.

The jeep in front of me

Pauses

A cheery call 

A friendly arm

Wave to the girl

All in black

Walking by the side of the road.

She laughs

Waves back

the encounter gone

 on down the road.

The jeep driver’s shirt is royal blue

The waver’s shirt is just as royal

Purple.

A gym bag of ruby red

Is tossed without care

 behind the seat.

Tethered to the back

A bicycle

Ready for the road

For now its energy contained

And staring at me

Like a captured gazelle.

The driver turns and talks

The passenger laughs

They waved at the girl in black

But I caught the joy of meeting

And I drive

No longer alone.

insparation

Inspiration

No poems

Have magically arrived

Typed into a word document by

the shoemaker’s elves.

Are there poem writer’s elves?

 Fairies, minahunis, or pixies?

I suspect there are computer gremlins

But do they write poems?

No.

Poems must be thought,

then written.

They begin like the gentle raindrop

Collected by the reaching blade of grass

That gathers in secret places.

To puddle and pool

from a thought to an idea,

Until it escapes the limits

of the silent

and must be spoken.

The poem like the water,

Makes riverlets in thought.

Small channels pull on the present

And bring with them

 pebbles of the past.

Collecting the power of focus

in streams then rivers

Flowing with the force

And excitement of the new.

Then, like a water fall,

crashing on the rocks

of insipid existence

the poem

coalesces in the quiet pond

just beyond the bewildering splash

 and flows quietly

into being.

Butterfly flight

Butterfly Flight

A butterfly wings across open ocean.                               

How long will the salty air support its flight?                

Do the sea breezes tell of fragrant flowers                                    

Freeing their furled petals after foreign nights?                    

What butterfly dream of sweeter nectar

Provoked a tour of ocean’s glint and sheen ?

How long does safety beckon from dark green shores

Before the blue of sky and sea becomes supreme?

Is it courage, folly, or unthought flutter,

Or perhaps just the need to beat splendid wings

In a rhythm of singular counterpoint

To the undying song that the siren waves sing?