Short Hectoring Poems

I turn on the television
the newsreader in hectoring tones
recites
        his sorry litany;

Emergency
Catastrophe 
Disaster
Death

so I turn the television off;
notice how loud 
the birdsong is this evening 

and search for 
other words;

Generosity
Gratitude 
Tenderness
Love 

Spring bathes in gold tonight
-and by such light
hope slowly grows...

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A mob of crows conflate a raucous debates
with sweet songs.

They gather
on the broken branches of Autumn,
they fill the leafless spaces
that now are only naked windows
for a colorless sky.

An ad hoc hectoring
of dark and light notes shakes a cold wind -
a song sheet for the fallen and failing.

If you watch and listen
to that black-winged rabble
all will turn into the glossy iridescence
of ethereal harp music
played solo upon the few twigs left
within these stark woods....

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