November 2024
Bio Note: I am still unpacking files and books. I miss the view of sunrise from my back window, but hanging pictures, knowing that we are only minutes away from our daughter now makes us grateful for the move and hopeful for the future here.
The Met Calendar
Ever since I was fifteen,
Now more than a half century ago,
I have purchased
notecards and scarves
jewelry and household items
books, gifts for new babies, and
every year, after age fifty, the calendar.
I began to buy the calendars
when I knew I needed a pop of color,
the consolation of beauty
alongside my weekly schedule
instead of a mere computer note.
Now as I approach seventy-seven and
ponder this year’s calendar purchase,
(all impressionist or various art),
I realize that a new Met calendar
offers me a year of hope--
that I will live to scribble
notes and haiku in all the daily spaces,
that by writing my appointments
I will remember to attend them,
and that each future day
will be filled with beauty.
Searching Dry Leaves for What We Lost
Squirrels skitter
among fallen leaves
once soft, brightly colored
now dry, crispy brown.
I hear their chatter—
“where are the acorns
we hid last week?”
Then one begins to dig
others join and they
celebrate the treasures
found at oak’s trunk
under a mound of leaves.
As they call to one another,
I laugh and wonder
if perhaps
these clever little fellows
could help me find my
glasses— in the scattered
dry leaves of typed paper
in my office. I know I
put them down in there,
but where?
When I uncover them,
I too, will rejoice.
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