The front garden's like sugar frosted flakes in the morning
and like my favorite coral, sweater in the silk afternoon.
By evening, it's beautiful brown like comfortable leather shoes.
In the cold, cloud night this cinereal garden is creating.

If I sit under a tree in autumn,
watch the first leaf fall
stay until the last falling leaf
will I have changed?

Eyes sting, skin's hot, breath's jagged.
I head backwards, look down, forget about sky,
my children, rose bouquets, musicals, lilac trees,
summer tomatoes.  I don't hear you encouraging.
I wish for gentleness.
My words in my hands.
My words in my face.

Two energetic hands cupped as if to play the piano
waiting excitedly for inspiration... not impatient.
It is the mind that looks at the clock and remembers
the horizontal plane, darkness, and a 6am alarm.

Supposed tos, shoulds, laundry, dishes, four lines,
less than whispers as I want to just sit and read through
the Gardener's Supply Company catalogue while
listening to my son and daughter's priceless conversation.

I write on snow with angels wings and gown,
shoveled paths, snow balls rolled, boot tracks.
As if to say there's nothing permanent,
the morning responds, a page of sparkling white.
A correspondence begins!

Four lines from Oscar Wilde

Tread lightly, she is here
  Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
  The daisies grow.

A haiku is
a loved photoless
photograph

Zoli,  Zoli, roly poly
in the meadow, meadow green.
Spy a bear, call a hare
share with them a tangerine.

Sara's Moon Beam is the color of gray marble
though she has white paws and pink on one ear.
In the middle of every action, with her wise green
cat eyes, she moves with whimsical grace like Sara.

The pain in my brain is insane
In this frame I am lame and to blame
With this fear and these tears I'm not here
I can't hear it or get near it ....  Spirit

Four lines from another author,
William Shakespeare

(Beatrice)  What fire is in mine ears?  Can this be true?
Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell!  Maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.

When my brother was seven he told me
he was going to marry milk and his pillow.
Being five, I wondered - how can he do that?
Now I know.  At 53 I'm going to marry my piano.

For some nameless reason I name
I want to write four lines all day.
Falling leaves linger in mid air
because I am studying the Tao.

Four lines by Robert Frost

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a woods, and I -
Took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

Here I am trying to come up with something
at 11pm when I feel like nothing.
My yawning mind can't think of anything
not even one more thing.

Four lines by another author,
Lao Tsu
(translated by Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English)

Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being.

We sweep tulip leaves into a pile
the fall color of milk chocolate,
the texture of Nestle Crunch Bars,
the sweetness of goodbye till spring.

Missed, and missed again, for reasons having to do
with how small I see myself, my woe and my weeping.
These lines, this liking, to new to be love, needs space,
moments, a million moments, to grow.

Four lines from another author,
Emily Dickinson

Arcturus is his other name -
I'd rather call him star!
It's so unkind of science
to go and interfere!

Elizabeth has the energy of a saint.
and I want to be more like her.
When she walks my dog,
my dog is a saint too.

I practice piano during Orion's lesson
then float... and fly down five flights of stairs!
The day I float..and fly up those five flights
I'll have moved up a level to stay.


Four lines from A Course in Miracles

I cannot keep this form of upset
and let the others go.
For the purposes of these exercises, then
I will regard them all as the same.

Lesson of the Big Bellied Buddha...

thoughts delirious
hold them not nearius
nothing is not serious
nothing is serious!

I trigger him.  He triggers me.
We rat-a-tat-tat each other
with words.  Hey... time to
live without each other.

Four lines by another author,
Nixon Waterman

If I knew you and you knew me -
if both of us could clearly see,
and with an inner sight divine
The meaning of your heart and mine -

Just rake leaves... observe and rake leaves...
listen and rake leaves....no thought..
space for leaves.. leaf space!
No words now... just rake leaves...

It's October and my beloved tulip tree
is the color of apricots and daffodils,
of orange juice, pumpkins, bundled wheat,
school pencils and ripened yellow tomatoes.
She is the daughter of the sun.


Four lines by another author,
Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling, fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

Moment by moment,
note by note,
white, black, gray -
at my piano, playing
Moonlight by rote,
night turns into day.
Day turns into night and I
am still at my piano playing.
Night turns into day in moments
and note by note
I am praying.

Four lines by an anonymous author

Give me a mind that is not bored,
   That does not whimper, whine or sigh;
Don't let me worry overmuch
   About the fussy thing called "I."

Miracle Samuel, little Samuel, who are you
reaching out to connect before you are born...
before breath, the moments of your very first day?
Miracle Samuel with a hand of hope.


Four lines by another author,
Emily Dickinson

We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies-

Crisp as toast... a tired post.
Glasses clink or eyelids blink?
I can't think. Does this make four?
- Can't write no more.


Four lines by another author,
William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand, beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

I'm going to dye my hair green
and never brush it again
root the rest of my life in the meadow
then die and become a tree

What's the difference between a
Lamborghini, poppy-red and new
and a rusty old Ford, dented and blue
from the sky?


Four lines by an anonymous author

Great events, we often find,
   On little things depend,
And very small beginnings
   Have oft a mighty end.

This morning gold was on the wall,
not the tulip tree's leaves or shadow,
but silhouettes of the brightest space
through which the sun was shining!


Four lines by another author,
Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.