Long Neighborly Poems

I am an Outlander
Who lives on a high hill
Overlooking a man-made lake
That once was a rapidly rushing river
Along whose banks the Ozarks Bluff Dwellers and the Osage and then Delaware
Hunted, fished, and created shelter
For their...

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It is in our fragile, nearly broken, exposure
that we are most available for love
and remedial gratitude,
rather than the louder applause
of our full-blown ballistic glory.

While exercising restrained patience breeds tolerance,
giving pregnant reign to co-empathy compels timeless...

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I am just finishing my morning meditation when I hear my doorbell ring. It actually sounds more like that buzzing sound you hear if you fry a fat fly on one of those electronic bug...

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In April of this year I began preparing a new organic gardening patch,
planning to have it ready for next year's expansion from a too-small garden
in front of my recently acquired Connecticut Cape Cod home.

I have...

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I worry we co-invest in big private and public corporate assault
on Earth,
on environmentalism,
on longer-term ecologic.

Really, honey?
That's too bad.
Why not also see long-term assault
as the unintended outcome of short-term neglect
of cooperative care-giving,
healthy nurturing behavior,
Golden Rule economic...

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Permaculturists,
like Taoists
and Buddhists
and Hindus, etc.
Consider neighbors
extended and respected family,
ZeroZone Kin,
regardless of zone status
near or far,
regardless of species,
regardless of living
or gone
or not yet arrived.

Dear Neighbors,

I make no proud claims
of embracing a GREEN lifestyle,
making green integrity choices,
No...

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The Book

How good the night that darkens so
To guide me to my rest.
Where a favored Book lights up my eyes
As I nestle to my nest.

A few pages turned to praise the Lord
Seems too little price...

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Brief Mane n' Tail shampoo tall (tell) tale

Living social amidst 
crime infested urban jungle 
bumping uglies cheek to jowl 
analogous fate being housed in jail
escape room of great outdoors 
spurred subject matter in question
to journey...

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I Choose My Friends So Carefully
by Caren Krutsinger & Rhona McFerran

Get back in your house,
I will stay in mine.
We won’t act like neighbors,
Everything will be fine.

I had given you chances,
Several actually,
Invited you to breakfast,
And had...

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I Choose My Friends So Carefully
by Caren Krutsinger & Rhona McFerran

Get back in your house,
I will stay in mine.
We won’t act like neighbors,
Everything will be fine.

I had given you chances,
Several actually,
Invited you to breakfast,
And had...

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I was an eminent, solar physicist, like the blushing rose, craving renown.
Each butterscotch morning I drove to work, and toiled until red sundown.

The observatory was the place I loved, keeping watch on our nearest star;
Like...

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I

how could i know him his eyes say
but my eyes reply which of us may speak to that
be busy in the house that needs fixing
despite histories in three
and homes as safe as the clicking of...

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*When I was 6, a neighborly man said,"Good morning little boy. Are you waiting for a bus? "No sir, I said.  We don't have a bus. I'm waiting for my brothers and sisters. Our...

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I was a marvelous ophthalmologist, impacting how others saw this world,
As tomorrow one day sees yesterday, on lanes where hued leaves swirled.

I corrected hazy, crazy vision problems, with eyeglasses and with surgery;
Like a second look,...

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It's a hanging day in Wolf City, Wyoming, 1894.
They're gonna drop Cat Ballou through the gallows' floor.
Cat your time has come as you stand on the brink.
It's sure making you think
about your life of sin.
Why...

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Nope! I haint gonna crack'n on the heat... just yet
until the cowed chickens come home to roost!

Sunlight streaming thru window
body electric of mine doth whet
begets hardiness to acclimate
against PECO shut off threat
ideal opportunity to spouse
analogous...

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They were loyal sisters.
The older
was also more fair,
prettier in an Original Barbie kind of way.

She had been sick
when her younger,
darker,
more tomboy sister
met and first desired
my tall, dark, and handsome Uncle.

When older and fairest of all...

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I was momentarily saddened by the news I heard
About my neighbor living across the street
I was sorry to learn about the condition he had
Even though after ten years we never did meet

Then days turned into...

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and Which the Witch?

Warning!  Suitable for Children Only!

"That dog's a menace to the community.
I'm taking her to the sheriff to make sure she's destroyed."
-- Miss Almira Gulch,
a citizen taxed,
speaking of a pet owner

* ...

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Mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart
Troubling thoughts spill out like smelly discharge 
You hear people say  ”I’d rather trust a stone than a person” 

Because people’s yes is no longer yes
Lies have...

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Of those to admire, or crusaders we've known
pulled from the movies, or comic-book clones
there is one to consider, I wish I had known.
I'll say "Mr. Rogers", and eyebrows will raise.
Considered, perhaps an unlikely name.
Not the...

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They were like sweet melodies on special assignment from heaven.
Perhaps they were Nightingales greeting both me and the dawn.
Oh, how I miss those singing birds where we used to live.
We made our move to our...

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When my kids were very young, I reminded them to always lock 
the DOORS, because we are not in heaven yet. They understood.

There's a house with a total of 11 windows and 11 DOORS.
Windows are...

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There was a place, supposedly, that was my home.
I was born and grew up in that Southern place.
My family was great, but that place, not so much.
I heard it said that home is where your...

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From a neighborly distance, the drama of a life's finality unfolded
A man named Mient. Once a well-known construction-scientist
When we became neighbors at Christmas he was a double amputee
Both legs taken by diabetes, then a man...

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