February 2025
Author's Note: I chose the optional theme as the title for this poem. Reading the theme, I heard the music for the old “Love Boat” TV show in my head and that inspired me to go for “light, frivolity and rhyme" in this. The other comes from the phrase “an air of mystery.”
Love is in the Air
Right now outside my window
snowflakes, just a few, are
gliding by on the forward puffs
of what will soon be harsh gusts,
a windborn squall swirling down
piling flakes onto road, sidewalks, lawn.
A squirrel skitters across my deck
cheeks full of acorns, back
to his secure oaken homes.
Birds are already still, any chirps
only audible to babes and mates
cuddling with them in their nests.
My husband has joined me
at the window where I have lay
out my plan to enjoy a glass
of wine and leftover cookies,
to cuddle, and listen to the storm
together as stars compete with
snowflakes to light the dark sky.
As wind rages in the cold,
we watch together and well…
love is in the air.
The Black House—An Air of Mystery
She is likely the last of her kind, an old Victorian lady flanked on one side with a stone block storage facility and on the other with a brick building boasting apartments available. Clad in black siding, she seems a piece of night tossed on the macadam roadside. Boarded first floor windows hide her innards though crows peer and jump into holes in the upstairs dirty glass made by storms or rocks tossed up by errant teens. All of this makes me wonder what is inside, even as I shudder when I walk by. A local realtor just invited me to view it—tonight, with flashlights and a full moon. My response: “maybe.” Those of you who know me, are you taking bets on whether I will go?
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