Summer poems & summer plants

Anthurium bloom

I SEE YOU!

Passing

through the house, I

spot in the shady yard

the V-shaped ears of resident

rabbit.

~ ~ ~

Baby's Breath from Mother's Day planter

TABLEAU

Robin

bathing in last

night's very-welcome rain.

A finch wades in, then out, then in

again.

~ ~ ~

Sage from Mother's Day planter

Faint sounds

of night insects

this summer morning. Rains

brought relief--and humidity,

no breeze.

~ ~ ~

Coleus from Mother's Day planter

MORNING

"Do, re

mi, mi, mi, do."

The wind chimes serenade,

the cat spies a lizard, the squirrel

searches.

~ ~ ~

Purple jew from the front bed

HAIKU

cicadas   tree frogs

and electric-meter wheel

steamy summer night

c 2018, PL d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA

Unrelated --photos and poems for July

cool wind
crow calling someone . . .
                     something . . .
~ ~ ~

on the riverbank
in my own company
distant train whistle
~ ~ ~

droplet
hanging from a lily leaf
the damselfly
~ ~ ~

pergola's downside
after a shower
the wet chairs
~ ~ ~

the safety
of mother's underbelly
three-day-old giraffe
~ ~ ~

dolphins leaping
into the moon's silver path
quiet evening
~ ~ ~

listening
for the baby to waken
the day-long rain
~ ~ ~

counting forty sips
by the same hummingbird
before it flies off
~ ~ ~

a new nightwatcher?
no, just the full moon above
awakening town
~ ~ ~

c 2018, PL d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA

SUMMER anytime, anywhere: a poem

                                    Sage from Gordon's Mother's Day planter

SUMMER
(rediscovered in LUCIDITY POETRY JOURNAL, Summer, 2002)

Pack up the 'wagon, we're leaving this town

with our kids for two weeks at Nebo's campground.

A giant Impala packed close as sardines

with two youngish children and two more pre-teens,

six sleeping bags, cots, and a blue-striped tent

--its raising is always a stressful event.

"Let's find the swimming pool," begs older youth,

and, finding the bottom too fast, breaks a tooth.

Tennis preoccupies father and sons,

while daughters, with mother, bounce, swing, slide and run.

The day Dad turns forty, mortality looms;

he gazes toward sunset through coneflower blooms.

At night when the katydids kickstart their tune,

we see near the table bright eyes of a 'coon.

One night when it's raining, the tent starts to lean

we move cots to center away from the screen.

Bacon and coffee, charcoal and woodsmoke--

aromas spread over each camp like a cloak.

Hiking and reading, card games, volleyball,

away from computer, TV and the mall.

Two weeks every summer till children are grown

make memoried pictures to relive alone.

                                                  Summer sunset in Egg Harbor, WI,
                                                          photo by Gordon Paulus

c 2018, PL d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA