550: Attempt at longer poems

Wind Language

Hurricane breezes play zylophone on
metal shingles with birch hammers
Clangy, sudden, disharmonic
Now silent and safe
Or so it seems

After dinner the back porch door
she thrust down, lying out
lying to the earth
claiming to protect but
no longer serve

Except now it holds hors d’oeuvres
As an obnoxious new-old table top
it protests the burden of light
conversation, wishes again
for wind sorcery

to release from stability
and duty back to swinging
free yet not
hanging from hinges like nooses

deciphering wind-powered
Morse-code in the rain



The Day the Cat Died

I opened the windows and
pulled down the shades
I hate to admit – I cooked
salmon, ate none, then left.
Destination unknown
transport reliability, some

Dancing leaves mocked
her coat of many colors

so I followed then became
the wind chasing debris
swirls of dust then dirt
and mud, pebbles and bricks
fled before me though I tried

to creep and slink, leap
and pounce, my windness – no match
for her catness – gave me away
Apparent, I was; invisible
my thoughts no more

The sun erupted, then belched
away the clouds, scolding me for
impertinence. Angry, I banished my
airy self to the netherworld.
Finally – oh, finally! – I

crumbled like stale biscuits
my pieces scattered and disintegrated
the diaspora of me now infecting
streams or declaring oneness
with country lanes.

The sun conceded rule
to the rain, reigning heavily
on the conscience
bombing my streaming remnants
a million miniature mushroom
clouds of solid water bursting
from iridescent murk

but I remained unmarked
unremarked, free to sink
colliding softly with the
bed, drifting purposely
through protective stones
amulets of the deep

Resting, I wondered if
she returned to nibble,
invisible, the pungent
offering abandoned amid
frenzied shutters flinging.