Leafage Poems

KOMOREBI

       KOMOREBI

        Pushing dense bush walking in pathless forest
        under tree canopy, continuous.
        At dawn sun rays penetrating at best,
         torching dark tunnel , making luminous.

       Sunbeams filtered by leaves and foliage
       interplaying sheen and shade to astound.
       Komorebi  cast on dappled image
       forming lovely lattice on forest ground.

        Komorebi caused by leaf lamina.
        Pretty patterns to adorn forest floor.
        Sunlight is sieved by leafage patina.
        Wonder and dreams of sunbeam to adore.

        Morn glow of Komorebi ! End of night.
        Dark shadowed tunnel on opacity,
        finding flash of thin shafts of twinkled light.
        Profound pure pristine tranquility .
        
        When sunlight shines through tree in environ
         Contrast of light and shadow to receive 
         on re-energised radiant ion,
         Komorebi  to charm at morn and eve.

Confession

The flower was almost perfect.
The bloom only ever so slightly flawed.
Fewer or lesser leafage would have been nice,
in spite of this
she married this idiot anyway.

Autumn Walks

I have loved these evening walks
through smoldering reeks,
ankle deep in haunted litter.
Loved
the flicker of mottled hawks,
flaming across a waterborne sky,
the soft mats of moss upon late shadows,
the silver shimmer of small paw prints
in muddy puddles.
Those sweet smells, the spilled decay
and grace of newly wilted flora,
overripe and yet tingling with scented airs. 
A gilded leafage heaped only to be scattered
by a fresh-faced wind.
Slippery sidewalks painted russet,
the gold vapor of milder sunsets
as an easeful light drips from twig and branch.
Gilded threads of smoke winding through hedgerows,
mist trails sliding under warm breath,
these I have loved.

An Audible Fall

This Fall the woods in West Virginia
will blast out loud with a blazing plethora
of audible colors
that will begin gently with a rustle
then build upon that painted whispering
into a vocalization of such intense tones
that will eventually POP
! -
raining down a bright leafage of glorious flight,
and blazing away an autumnal sound
of both glory and respite;
an interim death

that will rise up
after a winery slumber with the sweet
green songs of an awakening Spring.

Here in West Virginia where I do not live
or call that place my home,
but visit with a sensitive ear at this time of year,

while I watch the trees rollicking-out
their rainbow party-songs at the edge of loss.

The Bone Tree

From beneath a long frozen earth
ancient human bones surface,
they rise far enough for an eye-socket
to be seeded.

A sapling grew from out of that skull.
In time the skull became a tree.

Like many tree’s its skeleton was on the outside
but the bone-tree’s bark was harder.

It grew gnarled and knotted, grimly striated
were it knurled as if a twisted growth
had tortured wood into blackened bone.
It’s leafage was scant, spiked, and leathery,
thorns were it canopy.

Some claimed it to be an old apple tree,
yet no fruit did it ever bear.

After hundreds of fruitless years
it fell, stuck down
by its own inflexibility,
its unbending bones broken forever.

From beneath a long frozen soil
where once a garden flourished
a serpent slid away
seeking more blind eyes.

Sentimentality

....is both dried berries and nut tree,
by the leafage, the sunlit the phizog,
oaks skirted the edifice's entree.

he never mentions his mother as unreal.
as I involve my mother, did he prevent her?

mawkishness -
spawned a popping sound,
What a foolish,
& semantic quibble.

mawkishness -
To defy reason,
& sanity.

m a w k i s h n e s s -
It's nearly dreadful, 
in its evilness,
mind-bending, 
in its hurdles.

Written: May 20, 2022

Sentimentality Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward

Idioms

When the world was youthful
spiderwebs sang as they were spun.
Language was woven in the air
as accents of winds and trees
Untrammeled meadows annunciated
upon the lips of dens and burrows.
Fresh bathed daisies signed a speech
as they swayed,
buttercups birthed calligraphy’s of sunlight.
Words were idioms painted upon
the melodious leafage
of the up-risen and rising.
Then that shaggy brat
the primordial ape-man grunted forth,
translating its gripey gut
through a creaky tongue.
A mouth-made muse had begun.
A nascent poet boldly stood forth
rhyming would with could,
and the dumbest of his tribe
cheered him fit to bust
while the green grown world
shrugged and turned its back
in dismayed disgust.

Wake For An Alder Tree

Last night the Alder so deeply rooted in the hedgerow
was shot through by a bolt of climatic vulnerability.
I heard the smoking gun,
heard the clangorous salvo, the snap and break,
heard the unflexed crook of it pivot and shear,
timber dislocate, break, and crumble.

There was a fibrous unclasping,
then the unfolding thunder of impact.

This morning, thigh deep in its wreckage,
maneuvering through the downed foliage,
the strew of crumbled catkins,
I listen to its death throes
of leafage curling into whorl and lacuna,
the rustling whispers of a dwindling aftershock.

Splinters and twigs tremble, lumber creaks on
as a sotto voce rattle of demise
as if the tree was still collapsing beneath its fall,
as if this murmuring requiem
were a way to explain what the moment did.

Russet and Rust In October

Damp campfires burn mouse bones,
their sooty ghosts
flavor the tattered.

The trees that don't turn,
stay hung on a scaffold
drab and dreaming.
Grey ribbons hang
from pall-bearing branches.

Smoky hollows wallow,
leafage languor’s in the smolder,
colors run in the reek.
The earth hugs its litter,
pulls it under to chew on itself.

Dawn Walk

cannot sleep
have to walk through the dark
to find myself

Sunup arrives
trundled out by painted clouds

for a melting instant
flamingos dance across
a shivering horizon

the day will warm its face
by thawing its smoky breath
on the back of a sleeping groundhog
by running bare
through creaky bushes

after all it is summer
the drizzle
will soon stop seeping
from new filled lakes

dry its sodden dreams
on drowsy leafage

the new sky roams around
for a while
adrift in its shadow landscape

then it slips through a gap in the fence
gleaming out 
startled by its own revealing

Idioms

When the world was youthful
spiderwebs sang as they were spun.
Language was woven in the air
as accents of winds and trees
conveyed by an eloquent sky.
Untrammeled meadows annunciated
upon the lips of dens and burrows
scooped by shrew, mole, and vole. 
Fresh bathed daisies signed a speech
as they swayed, 
buttercups birthed calligraphy’s of sunlight.
Giddy rills gave voice to fritillaries
that flew to the sun or moon.
Words were idioms painted upon
the melodious leafage 
of the up-risen and rising.
Then that shaggy brat
the primordial ape it grunted forth,
translating its gripey gut
through the clack of a creaky tongue.
Guttural and gregarious
it learned to babble and 
belch an oral discordance.
It yapped and yawped,
yawped and yapped
until a spoken language
verbosely pivoted to prolix
polluting the very airy air.
Then it was
that a nascent poet boldly stood
rhyming would with could
until even the dumbest of his tribe
understood
and cheered him fit to bust
while the green grown world
with all its idiomatic kin
lost the will to express
as before
for the fluent earth again.

Deeply Lush Orchard

When the orchard grows deeply lush
filling all rows with grapes
etched by dusk like a bold paintbrush,
I trace its outline’s silhouette
and rove along this patch
Where quarter moon draws a vignette
as leafage unfurl like coiled frills
showing off plump of red …
fruits ripe turned into wine on mills
nectar releasing piquant scent--
A harvest which imbues
Nature,   her life- giving  intent.



~
10/23/2020
Contance La France’s Writing Challenge-Tercet Contest

A Journey

In the fog, odyssey
A cheerful adventurer 
Free to be
In dampish autumn weather
Hikes into the hills 
Awesome and deep
Watching the leafage sweep
Whilst song birds spill
Into the alone to peep
The only other sound --the break
Of distant waves and warblers awake
The air is raw, with a cold whisper
Many miles to go before any sleep 
When sweet dreams come cheap
To a crusading journeyer 
Who has promises to keep

Ode To the Flowers- -A Sonnet

Ode to the Flowers- -A Sonnet 

So fine flowers, your colors so bright.
the way in the wind you flap, wallow and soar,
Invades my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about the pleasant or.

Let me compare you to a warm ember?
A blaze so biting, exciting hot, pale.
Blind winds shake the leafage of September,
And autumn time has the fighting fantail.

a sunset your blooms do blend in a haze
Colorful benign sweet, wholesome and bright.
Thinking of your good wholesome fills my days.
My love for you is the unpleasant mite.

Now I must smell with a divine heart,
Remember those light scents whilst we're apart.


12/15/19
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2019©

Like Needle and Thread

in an unseen giant's hands:

the deft squirrels probing,

penetrating lush leafage,

spanning tangled trees' branches.

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