More variations: Xerxes and Dorsimbra patterns

DO WHAT YOU CAN
Find something useful you can do each day,*
lovingly, lovingly,
which alters and improves a life.
For people needing advocates
to smooth the way and help them through,
become a sympathetic friend.

Some thoughtful deed to make a life less blue:
a cheerful note, a gay bouquet.
Forget those useless yesterdays,
and volunteer your services:
a ride to town, a meal brought in.
Help the sad ones longing to be treated
lovingly.

SOMETHING USEFUL

Find something useful you can do each day*
that isn't subject to the world's review--
you need a useful task to lift dismay,
a project you can throw your heart into.

For people needing advocates
to smooth their paths
and help them through,
become a sympathetic friend.

A smile, a phone call or a get-well note,
a trip for groceries or a meal brought in--
To make the earth a better place to live,
find something useful you can do each day.
c lovepat press 2009

*first line of a villanelle

Latest poems -

August 31 09 - Two Haiku

last day of August
almost too cool to sit
outside in shirtsleeves
~
last day of August
still one red bract
on the poinsettia
~
September 1 - Haiku

a cool day
white-breasted brown thrasher
bathing
~
Sept 2 - Senryu

tree cutter's helpers
play with my son's tetherball
awaiting their chores
~
Sept 3 - Cinquain

Barely
daylight, I pad
through the dining room, see
cats in each window wanting their
breakfasts.
~
Sept 9 - Senryu

Buzz Lightyear
back on earth after his stay
in space
~
Sept 11 - Haik-Sen

shuttled astronauts
circling the world again
due to bad weather

~
Sept 21 - Haiku

first day of fall
early-morning sun shining
but without the heat
~
Sept 22 - Haiku

Norfolk pine
festooned with raindrops
ready to fall
~
October 1 - Senryu

October first
finding box of summer clothes
still in the attic
~
October 2 - Haiku

the lone pink quince bloom
this early October
now in 'mum bouquet
~
c lovepat press 2009

Theme and Variations

Theme: A Traveler's Meditation (an amphion pattern)

God's handiwork is all around:
bright red leaves,
wheat in sheaves.
Fertile farms where flocks abound;
shaded cows
chew and drowse;
mountains' multi-colored dress;
thunderclouds
draped in shrouds:
God's bounteous works are limitless.

Variation I Highway 23 in Autumn (a Neville pattern)

God's handiwork is all around:
in scarlet, yellow leaves
and golden wheat in sheaves.
Sun-burnished pasturelands abound;
leafy groves shading cows
that switch and chew and drowse.
God's goodness--in all life--profound.

Variation II Same Time Each Year (Neville)

The autumn beauty's everywhere--
magenta, scarlet leaves,
bronzed stands of wheat in sheaves;
sun-burnished pastures, fragrant air;
umbrellaed groves whose boughs
shade drowsy brindle cows--
Creation's annual fall afffair.

Variation III Autumn Song (pantoum)

God's handiwork is all around
magenta, scarlet, yellow leaves;
sun-burnished pasturelands abound,
Cut, ripened wheat stands bronzed in sheaves.

Magenta, scarlet, yellow leaves,
umbrella groves of sassafras,
Cut, ripened wheat stands bronzed in sheaves--
a visual banquet unsurpassed.

Umbrella groves of sassafras,
a camouflage for brindle cows,
(a visual banquet unsurpassed)
which nonchalantly chew and drowse.

Like Garland's fresh-shaved stubble, gold,
sun-burnished pasturelands abound,
and I sing with the oriole,
"God's handiwork is all around."

Variation IV An Autumn Minute (a minute pattern)

The autumn beauty's everywhere--
in fragrant air,
magenta leaves,
bronzed wheat in sheaves.
Sun-burnished pastures stubbled gold,
lone oriole,
umbrellaed groves
--bovine alcoves--
a visual banquet unsurpassed,
a rich repast.
All senses share
fall's love affair.

c lovepatpress 2009 from the chapbook, variations, 1995