honey and sting

Dalliance -- written for brightfame, to her prompt "rain"


In New Mexico,
there is so much more sky.
In one part, a heroic sun shines forth,
like the Biblical bridegroom.
In another, a shadow sends hail and rain.

Yesterday as I was driving to work,
I very nearly got distracted in a dangerous way
by the rainbow-colored cloud above me in the east.
Across the next ten minutes, in careful glimpses
eased between checking car lengths and lanes,
I tracked the subtle shifting of blue, violet, green, and pink
in a narrow stripe of cloud.

Eventually, traffic drew away the brunt of my attention.
I like to think the mountain wooed the cloud,
just as the Bridegroom, the sun, gave wistful looks
as he considered broaching the subject of polyamory
with his Bride.

Roots -- for orange_crushed, to the prompt: spring, worms, roots, things underground

In my new house, in the first spring
in my new house, in the first spring in a house
after the apartment years, watching, waiting,
in contemplation of mud, and buds,
watching spears of leaves emerge, then large, dark,
purple Irises unfurl, after the tiny daffodils, or jonquils,
and before the roses, with their aphids that will require
soapy water, or ladybugs, and the lavender that died because
it was planted before the icy rain, and the snapdragons
that partly fell over in the wind, but are mostly okay,
and the spider in the house, and the moth in the lamp, flittering,
and remembering to water, but not too much, from the rainbarrel
out back, and the garden hose in front, with the planters
and what might be primroses, coming up from seed,
and learning again, after so many years,
how satisfying it is to have dirt on my hands,
under the nails, and in every ridge,
garden gloves from Costco left languishing,
pristine, on the kitchen table.

____

Light -- for catdragon, to the prompt, "Light"

in the middle of the night, coughing from a cold,
awakened too far for easy sleep, stepping out,
naked, scandalous, to my patio,
where i am soothed by the languid and delicate light
of the crescent moon.

____

Broken -- for JimPage363, to the prompt: Broken tablets, broken law

A law that a tablet can break
will never be whole.
Moses knew this.
Gritting his teeth,
he went up the mountain,
again.

____

Sleepless -- for gryphonrhi, to the prompt: summer flowers, trickling, birdsong

block the window with a tapestry --
the better to sleep, my dear --
or open wide to hear the trickling of the rain,
the lilt of summer song?

sleepless, I ponder,
while equally sleepless, but not at all
perturbed,
birds sing.

____

Sidewalk Puddles, for Maygra, to the prompt, "sidewalk puddles"


New umbrella, opened
against the hope of rain.
She crouches, touching the gutter
with her little girl hands,
blessing the place
where puddles might be.