Dreaming of Cheetahs

 Reported in the UK Daily Mail:
The incredible scene was captured by German photographer Chris Du Plessis, when he was shooting wildlife in a South African animal conservation area, a cheetah came to him quietly and lay there...

For some reason, the Cheetah has long been my favorite wild cat.  Something about the face.

Anyway, on this chilly and rainy April night, I post a poem about, not this photo, but dreaming of Cheetahs.

Dreaming of Cheetahs

I stand in the bedroom of my childhood.

I open up my pencil case

and find

a living Cheetah and a wolverine

freeze-dried and condensed there.

I take them out and watch

as they grow into their real size.

They begin to fight each other

with much snarling and lunging.

I wonder which one will win.

I think it will be the Cheetah.

I stand on the porch of a house

I do not recognize.

I see a Cheetah running out of the woods,

running swiftly

directly at me.

I stay where I am. The Cheetah

curls up beside me and

puts her head in my lap.

I pet her. She begins to purr.

I am a cheater.

I wear cheaters,

glasses currently broken

at the stem,

glasses that can’t wipe off

the grey slipper in my left eye.

 

Driving Back to Spring

  Driving Back to Spring

From snow still coating the Green Mountains of Vermont

Through villages at 20 miles per hour

Along the side of lakes just thawed along the edges

Down to the welcome to New York sign

South along thruways

Across Pennsylvania

Where the mountain backs bare brown

And south to Spring

Daffodils grinning at last.

When Everyone Was Still Alive

I'm already behind on my poems.   Received word that my cousin Jack Higgins had died up in Middlebury Vermont.  Yesterday I drove as far as Albany, spent the night with our sisters here,
and will proceed up to Middlebury today.   So glad I went to visit these cousins two years ago, while Jack was still alive.

That last phrase led me to this third poem/draft:

When everyone was still alive

I look at the family photo from 1972

When everyone was still alive

Three generations at the table

Then, year by year, they disappear,

One after another.

Three this year

Within a few months.

I drive down Price Street in West Chester

And remember Lib and Ed

Molly and Johnny, Gummy and Vic

Ernie and Mary, Dot and Jeff

And my parents

When everyone was still alive,

And all of these are disappeared now

As I drive down Price Street.

I go to Mass at Saint Agnes

And even Dr.Roberts, father of my

Grade school friend and

Perennial deacon

Has disappeared.

I sit in the pew

My family favored

And look around

At a church full of

Young families

And strangers.

I weep for all I did not ask,

For all I did not notice

When everyone was still alive.

Poetry Day 2: I Greet the Body

   I greet the body

You who used to mow the lawn furiously,

Sit back and watch the grass become a meadow.

You who used to be Dylan,  now be Emily.

You who used to be Elizabeth, now be Teresa.

You who  used to long for highways,

  now long for oceans.

Ears that used to ignore the birds,

Now you  know their voices.

April is National Poetry Month

and it's a tradition ( with me at least) to try to write a poem a day during this month.  More like a first draft a day.  For today's effort, I am writing about my favorite detective novels

Litany of the Ten Detectives

Spenser, for your love of Susan

 your witty repartee with Hawk,      solve me a mystery.

Wallander, for your pursuit of predators,

of human traffickers,   solve me a mystery.

Harry Bosch, for your battles with  politicos,

 your beer drinking meditations

 on your deck above the Hollywood hills solve me a mystery.

Jack Reacher,  travelling without a suitcase,

furious at the bad guys, solve me a mystery.

Armand Gamache, beloved by Three Pines, solve me a mystery.

Commissaire Adamsberg, struck dumb by mysterious attacks of intuition, 

patient with your quirky detectives, solve me a mystery.

Lizbeth Sallander, hard drives within hard drives, solve me a mystery.

Harry Hole, for your care for the boy Oleg despite everything, solve me a mystery.

Dismas Hardy, wily San Francisco lawyer, solve me a mystery.

Matthew Scudder, guzzling coffee at AA meetings,

sitting in the back pew at the butcher's Mass,

agonizing over murder,

solve me a mystery.

All you flawed and suffering fighters for the right,

solve me a mystery.

  solve me a mystery.