August crept up on us quietly, so sneakily like the raccoon in broad daylight I saw the other day at a horse stable while my daughter picked rocks out of Lances feet. Oh, just shush him away, Jody said. And I did, nearing closer, his black and white face looking at me to see if I meant it. I did. Not now, I said, go away.
I have a couple small poems for you as the end of summer approaches and we have no choice but to let August come eat the horses food, chewing holes through the plastic and making a mess of things. At least raccoons are beautiful thieves.
Innocence lost
A gnarled tree stump
washed up on the beach.
A piece of art carved by the sea.
How could it have landed here?
Tossed by the waves,
surrounded by stone,
calling us to remember:
Notches cut where boots once stood,
as saw blade severed this
ancient giant.
-Leon Aliski
No Such Thing
where do plans go
crinkled soft, burning
becoming ash after the tired
dreaming dies
ranunculus bulbs
easy to grow if you push
firmly deep in November
April they will rise again
from a death that never was
growing all the while
even dormancy a kind of
phoenix feather slowly
stretching up toward the sun
maybe there is no such thing
as the death of a dream
-Alli Rogers Dahlgren