No Further

She loathed four o'clock in the afternoon. It was the time of day when the sun sucked the ocean white. The slow-poke in front of her clearly didn't know how to drive judging from his speed-up slow-down tactics. His license plate said Arizona. Probably the first time seeing an ocean. She was anxious to get to her hotel, unpack, shove an armchair onto the balcony and think. She'd need to wear her dark glasses until the glare subsided and the ocean returned to itself. For millions of years the Pacific had known its boundaries, and that was more than what she could say about herself.

a peacock cries

at the edge of a field

misty morning

Fade Out

As a child, my grandmother's four dogs and my younger sister inhabited my make-believe world of adventures. My grandmother's enormous house in the mountains of Argentina was backdrop for the plays I starred in. Sometimes I'd let my sister have a part, as long as it was a supporting role. We rode bamboo steeds through the pepper trees, chasing bandits, stopping often for black figs or a fistful of grapes, and continued on. It didn't take much to invent a story and act it out. It was especially dramatic when the thunderstorms came and rumbled through the house, or when flashes of lightning lit up the sky and killed trees. That's when I'd let my sister have top billing and the dogs and I hid backstage in the closet.

shooting star
yesterday's idea
vanishes

A New Generation

I fled the house when I was eighteen. Like Moses with Pharaoh, it took several acts of God for my father to let me go. Eventually he succumbed as long as I promised not to disgrace the family. I moved into a small home in a cobblestone street neighborhood. A flower market flanked it on one side with a cemetery in the back. During the day it was noisy and full of mourners. At night, it was so quiet I could hear the stars come out.

childhood memories
shrinking
a half moon

once too many
tadpoles about
her eyes

the therapist says nothing
I haven't told myself -
rainless clouds

Outfoxed

Red squirrels have been part of my life since the first day I moved into the house. Every morning they race across the roof and bounce into the trees, chattering and chasing each other. Every so often they freeze upside down on a tree trunk, tails flicking, nostrils twitching, eyeing me as I watch them cavort from one of the garden to the other.

One day I hung a bird feeder from one of the trees. The squirrels chattered for joy and raced across my rood more than once. The friskiest one walked the length of the branch, hung from it by his hind legs, stretched himself out as far as he could, grabbed the feeder and brought it close to scoop seed into his waiting mouth. The next day I came home with a metal pole with an extension arm and planted it in the middle of the garden away from everything that squirrels could climb. It stood there like the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. No sooner had I hung the feeder than the squirrels found their way up, reached the feeder, shook it hard, watched the seeds scatter to the ground, and then jumped down eagerly to feed. Refusing to be defeated, I greased the pole with vegetable oil. Now the squirrels strain their way to the top, red bellies glistening in the sun, their brown eyes fixed on me as they slide down the pole like firefighters.

                                  broken promise
                                  a magnolia bloom thuds
                                  onto the ground

haiku3

rejection -
a bruised apple rolls
off the shelf


                                     Buenos Aires tango
                                     at the end of an alley
                                     the Big Dipper


sultry evening
the moon's tide
pulls me in

                                     his oil paintings
                                     so unlike mine—
                                     passion fruit

old pier
boats in the marina
moaning

                                     carrying on
                                     as if nothing had happened
                                     dogwood in bloom