Saturday, October 16, 2010

Musical Autobiography

I wonder what it would be like to write a musical autobiography? Just to think about the music you grew up hearing, even before you could choose what you listened to....And what were your earliest memories of music playing around you...And what you think is in your "musical DNA"? Also, then, what music defined the formative years or important eras of your life? What kind of music has become your favorite now? What are some of your anthems? This could be interesting exercise....maybe I'll do it.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lake Evening

I passed the Muslim women's tree--
its shade solid and inviting,
then stopped to watch a solitary egret
hunting in the shallows.
Where the sun had been,
the sky was the color of pale pink lemonade,
and to the east, barely half a moon
had been etched in the blue glass sky.
A steady breeze carried the scent of
moist earth and lush green grasses
and warm green lake water.
I thought of all the other solitary walks
I'd taken,
and I was glad I went.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Blackberries

Behind half a concrete wall,
just beyond a stack of timbers,
an explosion of blackberry bushes
prayed for us to deliver them of their fruit.

In the light of dusk,
heavy black globes hung
under their own sweet weight,
while above them the reds and pinks
waited in the wings for their debut.

Waist high canes, reared in humid black dirt,
transplanted when the old gardener died
to an urban plot they share with mullein stalks,
seem to thrive in this clay and mulch.

Fresh welcome breeze sifted through
the thorny courtyard
as we stood with stained fingers
and tasted the sweetness of the night.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

My daughter's constellations

Sleeping in her old room,
I discover on the ceiling
a galaxy from her childhood.

I try to make out the celestial system
of glow-in-the-dark stars,
to guess what she was thinking
when she created her own astronomy.

I thought I saw the constellations
of endangered birds and rainforest frogs
she loved when she was nine,

a flute-playing nymph dancing
near the orb of Chinese paper
that forms her sun.

Beyond that, I can't
discern the pictures in her sky.
Her most private planets
are only visible through
a telescope she took with her,
the lens of her own heart.

I have to be content
with this, and only this...
points of light reaching me now
from her distant past.