Brave
I bought an umbrella yesterday.
A clear dome, a half bubble
so that I can look up to see
the sky when the rains come.
If I were brave I would look up anyway.
I would let the cold pellets crash against my face,
each one a fresh shock.
I would open my mouth and drink the
melted clouds.
But I bring my umbrella.
I need it still;
however thin, however clear.
I am not brave today.
Maybe tomorrow I will be.
Word Painting: Copse
Trees in bark suits: pinstripe, houndstooth, herringbone.
All different: look at them.
Ungrown branches like eyebrows, cocked.
Shelves of fungi layer the vast oak.
A yawn of a hole in its side.
A baby willow: its fawn-leg trunk
and dancing feathers hair.
Dew bounces on the shiny shield leaves of the hazel tree,
but not like diamonds. Like bubbles.
The Norway spruce has soft pink pinecones—
Hitchhiker thumbs pointing upwards.
The maple is entirely hollow: no life left, yet it stands.
Dazzling.
Dead trees, live trees—indistinguishable in their magnificence.
Clouds
Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they conjoin.
Or pass each other on different planes,
deforming, never meeting.
Pencil-grey they smudge, releasing
dense, slow drops that
dimple the stream ahead of me.
The spots on the pavement rise beneath the concrete,
maybe because I don’t see them fall.
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image: Pixabay
