I lost a seed that was given me
to plant in my springtime garden.
I let it fall through thin space
onto a dark and ordinary place
away from light or the need to find.
I did not plant it straightaway
when bright was the sun
and fertile the ground.
Only in hasty scribble penned:
“Write about a lost seed.”
Today I found my hasty scribble
had turned to dry husk
bearing neither flower nor fruit
from that moment it came to me:
“Write about a lost seed.”
Portland, Oregon – March 30, 2020
In cold springtime
we poke up sun reaching
drink frosty rain
bloom with flowers.
Other live things bloom
grow across the world
become part of vibrant life
cause sickness and death.
Little different we
from viral living beings.
We infect the world
cause sickness and death.
Before me the horizon blooms
with life never imagined.
Oh, to bask in the light
before sickness and death.
Portland, Oregon – March 24, 2020
The worldwide pandemic (Coronavirus, Covid 19) is currently ravishing the world.
This will end. We will be.
Closing doors, still spaces, spring
streets abloom with children.
The world is slowing silent
into layers of contemplation,
stillnesses of reflection
we had lost, unexperienced
in our futile failed flail
against the scourges of history
read as “Black Plague”
as wars others fought in and died.
It is our plague now, our war.
We do not know who will live
or die but all will suffer –
this, our common grief.
What will be if we pass this time
without insight, humility, or will
to make of closing doors
entrances to a transformed world?
Portland, Oregon – March 19, 2020. Vernal equinox.
Before birds in ancient forests sang
swirling winds made grasses rushy sound
leaves flutter crisp on autumn branches.
Ocean waves on crumbly beaches
pounded sounds on shalely shores.
Rain splash, tornado whirl,
branch break fall into needle leaf
fern rustle – winter ice crack
snap of spring in river gurgle
noisy ramble down to silent lakes.
On, on the sounds of tumbling water
in rivulets to the sea or whishing
soft silent into the air spin
whispering around the world til plop!
N’er a chirp or cacklecaw, by Gawd,
for there were no birds
to sing the morning praise!
Portland, Oregon – March 12, 2020
So say the geologists, the first trees appeared in the Peleozoic era/Devonian period while birds first appeared in the Mesozoic era/Jurassic period. There may have been millions of years between the time of the first forests and the first birds.(https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/earth-environment/table-of-geological-periods)
In Cascadia 