watching the leaves fall one at a time, I recollect our vacuum

 

by David Morris 

Because you are allergic I clear the filter, and each time marvel anew at the fuzzy clump of intertwined castoffs– our dead skin cells shed singly; our hairs (your grays, my I’m-no-longer-sure-what-to-call-it-anymore color); our oils the transitory binding. 

I cringe before the wastebasket, reluctant to dispose of this little bundle of us. Instead, I lovingly place the linty mass at the balcony’s edge. Approve of the wind’s grab, running it out of sight. Perhaps this offering can serve to line some critter’s winter nest.

gust scraping ground clean

forecasting bitterly cold

I saw a cloud swell

Evergreen

 

plumes of dust advance

bringing the Rockies to us

a coming cold front to add

to our acre of brittle stalks

drained of appreciable color

unending praise to the HOA

planting the baby pines

even if they do resemble eight

Charlie Brown Xmas trees

snow will silence our snickers

every community needs them

visionaries far-seeing anxious days

when conditions turn forbidding

planning in advance for everyone

a preserve of encouraging green

How To Cheer Me

Photo by Drazen Nesic on Pixnio

1. Endow an empty lot in native grass 

scatter throughout wildflowers

let nature course

it will find its own design

here a blade of wild rye

beside black-eyed susans

there a stand of sunflowers

heads lolling on necks

2. Silence the mower

stow the weed wacker

flip off the edger

kill the leaf blower

listen to a different drone

one cricket leg rubbing against another

one cicada wing sliding by the other

One hummingbird hovers near me

3. Let bugs be. The turkeys will hunt them

especially the juveniles

gliding off afternoon roosts

football bodies covered in black feathers

lodgepole pine cone necks outstretched

nubby bluish heads the texture of concrete

leaping above the grassline 

trying to take in dragonflies

The Last Becomes First

ugly metal interruptions

is what we complained

criticized spindly appearances

staked out in our all-natural view

those starter trees we disparaged

now the only vital remnants

amidst paled-to-yellow leavings

ghosts of former selves