The Kittens

For Sanaa’s Get Listed at Real Toads. The four words I chose were lucid, touch, sleep, gravel. This is also being posted on dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

The Kittens
it was a clear and chilly morning.
The gravel crunched beneath my feet
as I walked back from getting our newspaper
from the foot of the drive.
The chill snatched the sleep from my eyes
and the frost sparkled on the grass.
The morning was like a lucid dream
and I bent down to touch a blade of grass –
the frost melting beneath my fingers.
I put the paper on top of some boxes in our garage.
Something caught my eye.
I looked behind the boxes and saw a nest of newborn kittens,
huddled close and tight for warmth
And then I noticed the maggots
crawling on their beautiful fur.
My mind warp sped to the body of a cat
I had seen in the road a few days earlier.
The kittens were stiff in death –
Orange, tabby, black, and calico
all together in a nest of death.
I began to weep in grief.
The morning turned to nightmare
as I grabbed a shovel and walked
to the edge of the woods to bury them.
When I was through
I sat on the back steps and thought
of how the death of wild kittens
could hurt so damn much.

Harvest

For Poets United Midweek Motif – Abundance.

Harvest
“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.” Anthony Bourdain

A bushel basket full of freshly dug potatoes,
Yellow squash and zucchini,
Green beans and tomatoes, peppers –
Heaped up, running over.
The last of the harvest of my garden.
The vegetables have been shared with neighbors.
and now at the end of the season
the basket of goodies will be shared
at the Food Bank.
I use the abundance of my training as a chef
to share and cook there.
The smiles will grow like my garden.
Abundance in its purest form.

 

Haibun: Things I learned in the CIA

Posted for Mish’s prompt at dVerse Poets Pub – finding beauty in the ugly.

Haibun: Things I learned in the CIA
“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.” Anthony Bourdain
Many years ago, I attended and graduated from the CIA – The Culinary Institute of America that is. I was paired up with a tall lanky homely young man with curly hair and large deft hands. Unlike the rest of us, he always had a piece of rotting fruit or vegetable on his work station. Out of reach of the knives and other items, but always there. I remember once one of the instructors yelling at him to get rid of that damned piece of rotten fruit. He would but the next day, another one took its place. I think the others felt sorry for me because I was paired with him but I liked him a lot. He was dryly funny and open to everything. We became lovers after a fashion and finally I asked him the question: Why the rotting fruit? He smiled and said, “in its own way, it is so beautiful. And we all come to this you know.” I would sometimes see him lift a pear, an orange, a bell pepper and look at it from all angles before carefully replacing it on the table. After graduation and working under some excellent chefs, he went his way and I mine. I never forgot him. And no, it was not Tony Bourdain.
rotting fruit
in its season –
so must we all

The Season of Fireflies is Past

For Reat Toads Tuesday Platform.

The Season of Fireflies is Past
“There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.” Anthony Bourdain

The season of fireflies is past.
the shade from trees is getting longer –
days are becoming shorter –
nights are growing cooler.
It is so silent
The sound of a train whistle
several miles away carries
faintly over the tops of trees –
it moves like a slow river and pools
on the black grass of my back yard.
I’ve seen one firefly here at the end.
It winked at eye level
and a few minutes later it winked higher up
and still a few minutes later it winked
up in the top of the old oak.
The train whistle awakens the insects –
the cicadas and crickets –
it awakens the tree frogs who begin their
treble belching – and the old bullfrog
in my dying garden sings
basso profundo – the cicadas
ratchet it up a little bit louder.
I can feel it in my soul and in my bones –
Summer is taking her shower and soon will
be in her jammies and sleeping.
autumn will awaken and begin his
royal progress throughout the land
trailing clear blue skies, deer, and golden leaves
in his wake.
The season of fireflies is past.

Forget-me-not Sky

For Marian’s prompt over at Toads – a very fussy little form known as the tritina. I don’t know if it did it right but I did try.  The poems consists of three three line verses and one single line for a total of ten.  The lines end in a cofusing (to me) pattern of 123, 312, and 231 using all the ending words in the last line.  I don’t care for forms because they are too rigid.  But I tried.  Lord knows I tried.  Marian I am sorry if I got this wrong.

Forget-me-not-sky
The wild winds came and blew the summer away –
Turning the sky to the heartbreaking blue of forget-me-nots,
And putting a chill into the night air.

Smells of moldering leaves and dried grass perfume the air
and the hummingbirds have all gone away.
Dead are the summer’s forget-me-nots.

I planted years ago the sky hued forget-me-nots
breathing in the cold autumn air
and finally turning with sadness away.

The thin autumn sun warms the air while clouds sail in the forget-me-not sky.

the Japanese refer to this particular shade of blue sky in the autumn as aki no sora.

 

Journey’s End

For Sherry’s prompt at Real Toads:  An Unreal Fairy Tale in which we retell a fairy tale or make up a new one.

Journey’s End
Listen children:
It is raining on Saturn.
The rings weep crystals of ice that fall upon
the remains of a traveler
through space –
Alone.
It came here twenty years ago –
Cassini.
Bravely it dove and dove again and took pictures of the
Great Planet Saturn
and its impressive rings.
Alone and silent it travelled
and alone and silent it sent back
images to earth.
Twenty years later it was time for Cassini to die,
all the way down until it plunged to the surface
it filmed the planet that was
to become its grave,
becoming one with the methane lakes.
The last image –
down it plunged through the rings.
Against a full harvest moon the
the ghost of an owl spreads its wings
and soars.
Listen children:
It is raining on Saturn.
Cassini tasted the tears
of that rain.

This image of Saturn’s northern hemisphere was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017. It is among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth.

Fall Knocks Slowly

For Real Toads Tuesday Platform

Fall Knocks Slowly
Fall knocks slowly at summer’s door:
an old friend with shyness at returning and
maybe told to leave.
Leaves turn yellow and
slowly drop on green grass and
turn brown to be swept away
by chill winds.
Breezes once warm start
to be chill at evening
and daylight’s gold luster fades
to early evening.
Evening comes too soon for those of us who love the
sweet warm days and azure skies
but summer opens the door to fall and
the visitor glides in and
settles down to stay until
winter bids it go.
In the cold winter
might stars seem to burn brighter –
heaven’s nightlights to keep us safe
while we sleep and dream of spring.

copyright kanzensakura