I mailed my resume on
turquoise paper, accompanied
by a light blue cover letter
with a poem fonted in green.
  A blending of required and unexpected,
to inspire another look,
be put aside with the
few and lucky, provide
a glimpse of me.
  Send myself on white paper
with black letters?
How are your employees
encouraged to think?
  If it is not creative,
I am not for you.
If your company is unevolving
it is not for me.
  However, if you like murals
and color, in the halls, offices,
the heart of your board room,
bathrooms and stairwells,
on the back door....
  if music extends from
walls, windows, doors, employees,
into the community and beyond -
without a dancer yet on the stage.
I am for you.

No poetry today.
Employment
takes precedent.
I feel missing -
as if I don't know
where part of my heart
has gone.
Perhaps... it is waiting
for me to catch up
already at my new job!

Buzzing and sawing, not the usual song bird
orchestra, woke me this morning.  Gathering
back thick curtains, I opened the window wider.
  In flowed bright blue sky with a squally wind.
Back yard trees buffeted uncontrollably
like boats in a storm.   In roared, too, a raucous,
unwelcome, constant chain-saw sound.

Someone was cutting down the green-auraed
half-fallen tree! Throwing on my old brown
sweater, pulling up my jeans, I called to
Little Running Horse, "Onyx hurry, come here!"
  We ran outside, bounded down the street,
were one with the corner like race car drivers.
There they were, feeding beautiful branches
one at a time in to a giant metal toothed maw.
  Cut up trunk pieces lay all over the grass
like felled chess pieces. They were cutting
down the entire tree, even the towering
still-standing half from last night lay grounded.
  Onyx and I starred at the working
men of the assembly, disassembling line,
watching beauty disappear.
Only a stump remained.
  A grave marker.

Orion's band played melancholy taps
at the memorial service yesterday for soldiers fallen.
  Peter's uncle enlisted at 22. He died in World War Two.
Shock waves rent through his family,
waves still Peter occasionally feels.
His life as a brilliant-future concert pianist felled-
at the Battle of the Bulge.
  I imagined other soldiers who died
to save the earth from Nazis - lives with futures,
families.  Gone.
Flags, flowers, white grave markers, waves,
memories remain.
  And... honor.

In my mind, I sang taps too for this tree, downed,
broken, dying before its time.
Are trees worthy of love, devotion and...  honor?
Google Frank Knight in Yarmouth, Maine and Herbie.
  You will see.

I walked back to the house
thinking nothing.
Trying to clear every thought with space
  for the creator to come in, always to come in,
explain everything to me.
Onyx never needs to do that...
Wagging her tail, she held her nose high,
sniffing the air.
  She is like Winnie the Pooh, carefree outside,
happy to be going home for breakfast.

     She blew him a kiss.
      He caught it, smiled,
     and moving his hand
      to his lips, let go.
     He blew her a kiss.
      She fumbled
              her catch,
     ran after the tumbling,
ricocheting kiss. -  here
   to                                   there
        and                   fro -
     Finally tired, she sat quietly
      on the floor to rest.
     The kiss bounced into her lap.
      She picked it up, smiled,
     and moving her hand
      to her heart, let go.

I did not hear the lightening
 break, splitting the tree in half.
  Yet there, half of him lies,
white leafed, a fluid embroidery
 cloud covering the road, hued
  by the street lamp light.
Branches and leaves
 that yesterday touched sky,
  every kind of wind and light -
haven to birds, squirrels and minikin
 creatures, now occupied the darkened
  street. The standing towering half
    must wonder why this is so.
My hand tenuously brushed over leaves,
 before several stories high,
  now a moving, unmoving wave,
still beautiful auraed in green.
 Still beautiful and unusual on
  the cement, like sky on ground.

Nodding to sleep
thinking of writing
a poem.

I showed you my hugging trees

hoping you don't think I am crazy.

You brought me kale chips, maple syrup

and a book called, "The Practice," not knowing

that practice is one of my favorite words.

A day disappears tick tocking along.

We turn days into weeks,

time into space and moments into

cherished memories.