Can’t stop the rain

17. cracks

we are all underwater
because it rains and rains and
rains

sump pumps groan and wheeze
shaking the house
streams pour out of the hose

into the grass the street
turning lawns into lakes that ducks
sometimes visit

roads flood the river rises
moats form around our houses
trees whip and flail in sudden winds

lights flicker thunder vibrates
window panes hail clatters
bounces cracks

tornados make up their minds
somewhere nearby
and ah it’s spring everything

exploding vicious and green

Rainy Day

4. nature always wins

april showers bring
panic and puddles
to the basement
water worming through
cracks in concrete
coming together in
a frigid pool at the bottom
of our tired stairs

like the busy mice
who visit my sister’s kitchen
sniffing their ways in
on the heels of expensive
furnace engineers

and their cousins
in Fox Point
who burrowed into Nan’s garage
to chew her SUV’s wires
into hazy black beds
then nested cozy across
her useless engine

nature’s confetti

A Hopeful Afternoon

I’m finally getting my head around the spring, and turning my thoughts toward renewal, return, and positive change. It’s easy to fall into cyncism and alienation. Far harder to see what I’ve been calling destruction as the violent change necessary for the growth of something new.

Three Haiku

Nature returns, slow,
lush, deliberate, green,
quiet, proud, and sure.

*

Violet weeds spring
from winter's lawns, asserting
wild beauty and joy.

*

Maple fuzz pops up
like new hair on bare tree limbs --
ancient wise women.

Day 24

Challenge: Find solace in nature.

The Dance

Gray Sunday but 
the shaggy cedar rides
the wind, 

bowing and flaring,
bending against our
sagging wires, 

just rubbing into
the budding maple. 
It’s a dance, 

how the two trees
sway and tremble, 
shiver and

lean together,
shy, 
reverent, 

singing over grass
grown, in a night,
a magical green.