Carmen is a Cat

Notes from Crowhaven Farm/The color of Rust

My old friend, the Snakefeeder, the herald of the rains, a scribe of May who watches children walk home on the last day from Lincoln elementary. I do recollect the consideration of dropping that card into the Liffey that ran below us as I'd never failed a class before, let alone two! All because I didn't want to handle an eaten-up chicken bone and attach it to construction paper. My mother made me do it anyway and Mr. Brindley changed the grade. Or maybe he didn't, it was one of those lesson things they're convinced will get you to the top of the heap. All the adults insistent on the learning process, but this...I never learned to sew and barely brushed my teeth. I was all wrong until one day until I wasn't and blossomed. It was that easy to turn life around because adults are so good at that, seldom try and when one does, it's the wrong guy.

Ode To The Gully Washer

When it came down we'd bow
our heads and utter each to each
in the plain-spoken dialogue
of the deluge. A year's worth
of waiting over in a flash. Resurrection's
aisle cleaned up, mint and grass
combed out properly in three directions.
A kicked ball would turn up
near the corner in a stretch
of wild rasberries wholly out
of reach, trespassing sign not needed.
Toe-pinchers and water walkers,
giant red dragonflies called snakefeeders:
everything with a description
sorting origin and function, a collection
of results-specific identifiers
for the concerns of our people.
Wasps with addresses and vendettas,
rocks with names beside
bamboo and China Berries,
pop beetles and walking sticks.
A host of communion eaters
and seekers, drought prone to river wise.
Our contempt reserved for the fires