Mature arboretum
Memory of spring gone
Many start to wither
Maple leaves dominate
Multi-coloured display
Montage for October
Masterclass in fine art
Who is this who comes us
within the shadowy arboretum of soul?
Who waters those roots with tears,
revives with ardent longings,
until She appears on the periphery
of mind, to claim our thoughts
as Her own?
A cosmos must explode
into light,
only then do we know
how to make love
to an image,
knowing we are the mirrors.
I’ve written about it before
Because it’s just so interesting
The way the mind works doing mindless chores
As I zigzag in and out of trees mowing the arboretum.
Sometimes there’s a pattern I follow.
But usually, it’s a sporadic dance
Of split second decisions
Weaving around as the moment dictates.
Then sometimes something rare happens,
Or rather doesn’t happen,
And I find myself completely out of mind
Mindlessly mowing, turning and twisting in random motion.
And it’s in these rare moments
That I find freedom,
Or at least get a taste,
Of what it’s really like to be free.
I catch myself then of course,
And return to some semblance of mindful mowing,
I am after all merely human
Human all too human.
(7/6/24)
The arboretum is quiet today.
It is early,
yet too late
to spot a somnambulant space alien
emerging from the thorny bushes.
Do you believe?
I have seen the odd-looking sparrows,
with their razor-sharp teeth,
have fearfully
fed them the toenails of the toothless.
I have evidence,
my face can be read
like a well-used comic book,
the weirdness of reality
is writ there for all to see.
After a downpour
the small, ruined butterfly house,
drips shadows.
A darker than light creature
crouches there,
the squirrels dare not go near.
Trees here grow out of the soil
just as fast as they can.
The slugs cut through new roots,
they chew the rubbery innards,
of any overly anchored oak or elm.
Sunlight is jumping out of its nightly attire,
a superficial normality will soon return
to the slinking park.
It is time for my body to slip away,
beneath the nailed down boots
of a credible fiction.
Tomorrow, my 2-dimensional scream
will be featured on the cover of a coloring book -
it will come with edible crayons.
I was sent to the Sahara to find the best cactus
All I had to do was mark it
Someone else would remove it
Bringing it to the sound stage
Or the arboretum or wherever it was needed
When the last wild tree has fallen,
Concrete covered last bare earth,
When we've finally completed
Rape of the Mother Earth,
When the last bird has flown freely,
The last wild animal safely caged,
Will we be proud of the warfare
Against nature mankind has waged.
When the earth is one big city
With an outlook bare and bleak
Will we have finally achieved
The victory we seem to seek,
The natural world confined in
Glassed arboretum, in zoos
And nature is reduced to manicured
Manufactured sterile views,
When machines have pumped oxygen
Cleansing carbon oxides from the air,
Oceans been cleansed of the garbage
We had in the past thrown in there.
When global warming is controlled
And the climate has settled down
Wondering if life will be of value
If, when looking around
The only view is the buildings
Of the one big sprawling town.
No more swinging swaying
Freely whispering trees
To accompany the birdsong
Drifting on a spring breeze.
Or a poignant scene
So hard to forget,
A skein of wild geese flying
Against an autumn sunset
FOG LIKE PHANTOM STREAMS
misty beauty, white ravines
make mornings meaningful
Acacia arboretum hold fast
At the breaking before breakfast
The new day, old friends, egrets
what are light green milkweed seeds called?
hairy balls!
There are three old women at the table.
One spits out her dentures.
We cannot stop laughing.
I am not kidding, one tells us.
I work at an arboretum. Look it up.
We do and we cannot stop laughing.
The guy in the booth behind the other two turns and glares at me.
I am laughing so hard now, I am crying.
They have no idea, and they keep it going and going and going.
I think they tease their hair
just to look a bit wilder
a little more… “coyote ugly”.
Perhaps a dash of “sports make-up”
under the eyes
to cut down the glare
of the headlights.
They roam the streets
hang out behind dumpsters
(probably smoking, telling coyote jokes”)
wondering why Mom and Dad
moved to the city.
Their den is in the Arboretum
overlooking the Boston skyline.
They go to Public School(s)
dumpster diving….
Covid box lunches.
Soon there will be more
a litter is due.
They may have to move
find a bigger place…
in the city….
good luck with that.
John G. Lawless
©11/20/2021
Within a lush verdant meadow, meanders a lazy river
Where wildflowers bloom beneath the warm breath of the sun
They sway upon a gypsy wind on this early morning in June
Stems of purple heather rise above the carpeted earth,
Emerald green as any Irish hillside or garden near the shore
Their saccharine scented plumes attract the pollen seekers
Bursts of color can be seen in shades of scarlet and white
For growing on the river's bank is a plethora of anemone
Not the variety that resides in the depths of a sea
Yellow iris mingle with daisies in this alfresco arboretum
Untouched by the hand of man, it's an immaculate bouquet
Resplendent in perfumed glory and pristine perfection
There's the mellifluous sound of a cascading waterfall
singing a soft melody as it spills from crevices of granite rock
Nourishing the serpentine river flowing through the glade
This haven appears as an Elysian Field, as Eden must have been
A sanctuary to remain inviolate and reverenced by the gods
Perceived to be hallowed ground, too sublime for mortal man
September 29, 2021
Your Best Sijo Poetry Contest
Sponsored by William Kekaula
Wings in puddles.
There must have been a leak,
and in the sky nothing fly’s
but a crippled gale,
it limps now, yet howls still
from the far side of lost town.
Wind-drones moan in bare trees
sky wreckage litters.
Dead Purple Admirals
have gone down in rainy heaps.
Painted Ladies rest forever.
Longwings no longer sail,
for the roaming Yellow Swallow Tail
It is trails end.
Who broke the netting and the roof?
What dashed all
upon a fluttering flood?
Was it the piratical gulls?
No, like this emptying daylight
they have been flung into hiding.
Somewhere in this arboretum
new chrysalids sway on twigs,
soon there will be wings,
but not here in this ruined shelter
wear the air drips wetly
as if with tears.
The arboretum looks as it did then
With silver maples dancing in the breeze
Wildflowers bloom within the narrow glen
Remember how we kissed beneath the trees?
One special oak displays the heart you carved
With our initials set within its wall
We were so young and yet our souls seemed starved
So passionate are teens when first they fall
Today I came to view the art we left
Surrounded by the blooms, the trees, the birds
And though my heart seeks you, I am bereft
Of promises defined by long lost words
I miss that passion coursing through our veins
Now you have left and loneliness remains
June 10, 2020
Most elderly ladies
shine under a straw sunhat.
At the arboretum,
sitting under an Ash tree
(the same Ash
that she had sex under,
when she was old enough
to know better).
She leans back
on the scaled trunk
smiling at George,
who is not at all dead to her,
nor Harry, or Jim,
but at this moment
she is content to tuck them all
under her skirt
like a mother hen,
To smile
at the youngsters that pass-by
believing they know
anything about love.
Efflorescence in a period of time
As Chicory plant spreads
While arboretum is filled with newly watered seeds
The wild-flower in all its glory blooms
The gentility of the open space soiled
Polluted by the lack of responsibilities
A New Sun
Shining through leaves...
a golden canopy of Light...
and the calling-after voice
of an insistent mother, rises, instructs,
and dies away
and all of it: the breeze, the whispers, the passing occasional car, the children's laughter
floods into a montage of sound
that fills... everything!
and I am one man, and everywhere
and I am made, healed, shown
how it was supposed to be...
and... are you here, my Love?
in the trees
(will I see you peeking out from behind one)
in the winds
(your voice as soft as the stars' voices)
in the leaves
(a thousand reflections of a thousand perfect fragments of your face)
I think you must be...
for I am at home among the colors,
and there are children here
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