06.03.07
My Own Stuff
PRAYER OF A WOMAN TURNED 50
Please God
don’t let me get cancer or a stroke
or a heart attack or some fatal disease,
or hit by a car or a rickshaw
or get Alzheimer’s and go crazy,
just when I’m beginning to find life
so damn interesting.
Amen.
HAIKU
Woman sits
With swaddled, battered knee,
Reading and healing
Late summer rain —
Fringe of feathery marigolds
Soaked and bowed
We returned from lunch
He kissed my lips lightly —
He has my heart
Winter night —
chickadee all puffed up
on my window sill
Bare brown branches
in a water-filled vase —
yellow forsythia!
Hanging flower baskets
swinging gently and dripping—
late Summer rain
Walking sticks
tap, tap, tapping —
blind children crossing a bridge
WILLIAM BLAKE KNEW IT
(for Carl)
Grownups are boring.
Somewhere they dropped their sense of humor,
and don’t even know it’s fallen out of their pockets.
When (I ask you) does it get so sluggish, dull
and plastic?
At what point in Monopoly do you realize
that it’s going to be forever Baltic?
At what point do you realize it’ll always be Trivial Pursuit?
When do you buy that pocket protector,
climb into it, and pull it over your head
so that nothing gets to you,
nothing stings, gooses, or pinches?
When do you make a deal with the angels
that you’ll never consort with devils?
copyright 2007 maryt
01.06.07
Another Haiku
Along this road
trains shunting,
through fallen leaves
–courtesy of Auto Haiku
Oh, and BTW, Happy New Year 2007!
09.08.06
“The Donkeys of Kona” and “Big Island Haiku”
The Donkeys of Kona
The sign on Highway 19 says:
“Donkey crossing
next two miles,
dawn & twilight hours.”
Curious.
The girl at the Bad Ass Coffee Co.
tells me the donkeys were once used
to haul coffee beans
down the slopes of Mauna Kea;
but now they are wild, and free
to roam the lava fields;
to graze on tufts of straw grass,
the only thing that grows there;
she tells me they’re in trouble now,
developers want the land
and the donkeys have to go;
each time we pass that sign i look for them.
And then early one morning
there they are,
five of them, gray & brown,
walking single-file,
heading down to the shore
to spend the day dreaming,
and looking out to the West.
Big island Haiku
Driving to Hilo
Mauna Kea draws my eyes
toward heaven.
Wild donkeys of Kona
cross the highway at twilight
to graze on tufts of yellow straw grass.
Snorkeling at Kahaluu
this time I watch
big, lazy turtle!
Black lava fields,
clusters of palm trees at ocean’s edge -
oases of green civilization
Sunlight flashing on
Kealakekua Bay -
reef fish enchant me!
copyright 2006
