Improvements

Where rivulets follow ditches,
leaves make dams,
and small boys are moved
to purpose.
Their passage downhill
is slowed by painstaking
excavations
to speed the flow of water.
Never tell a boy

that natural order requires no improvements;
they are not in the least impressed that
water finds its own way.

birds worship

birds worship 

in a cathedral of leaves and wind

solemn chickadees

like priests and priestesses attendant 

upon the holy psithurism

of God's breath of renewal through buds 

and blossoms

of trees' hope springing anew

Drowning is Quiet

Drowning is not like in the movies--
not like the perfect life of a screen starlet cut short
in a flurry of splashing
and screaming
as the audience follows
under the surface to watch
her suddenly serene face recede
into darkness before following
the last bubbles of spent breath
up to safety
in the open air.

Drowning is the quiet, desperate,
and often unnoticed bobbing
of lips and nostrils at the water line
and the futile reach of hands for the invisible rungs
of a ladder to safety
that never comes.

Why should anyone find this surprising?
Do we ourselves not
often drown silently
in the loneliness of our own desperation,
never able to draw enough breath
to form words sufficient
to beg someone,
anyone:
Toss out a bouy,
reach out a hand,
for just a little while,
share your breath with me.

Someday I Hope Violets Grow

Someday, I hope violets grow where I am buried
and a tall, shading Elder tree to tend
the tender Spring Beauties in April--
not for my sake--no, I won't be there
and not for my beloved ones
who will know that's not where to find me.

The violets, the shade, the Spring Beauties are for you--
you, who might wander by, taking in
the silence of stones and the peace of violets
under the Elder tree amongst the elders
who are not there--who have gone on.

Boyhood in the Era of Aviation

With boys, everything flies:
baseballs, footballs,
paper planes, balsa wood gliders, kites,
remote controlled drones.
Dragonflies dodge flying fishing lines,
the pond an inverted sky
where herons take off and land
like silent planes.
Boys fly bikes on downhills,
coattails flying,
yellow dog alongside
flying down the grassy berm.
Sleds fly on snowed hills
and leave sublimed vapor trails
all the better for flying down again.
With boys, everything flies:
summer days and snow days
and holiday vacations
and most especially
time.

Birds of Winter

How bold the birds of winter--
black crows performing magic
upon bereft fields, jays
with stolen summer on their backs
taunting the solemn sky.

Sunflower Rejoicing Haiku

Lone Sunflower in a Soy Field by Stanley Crum

Outstanding in soy

green yields yellow's rejoicing

sunflower joy face.