Saturday
Arts and PoetryTwo Poems from White Clouds: 108 Poems by John Castlebury
The yellow field or the green-tinted field
The blue font scrawling in a neat hand
Pink rose looks strange out of its element
Paperweight rocks from the beach sit idly
Stepping stones are nearly overgrown
As blue font scrawls across yellow field
Rain steams off the road like hot sauna
Fog deepens so it’s almost impenetrable
My buttocks hurt from sitting too much
Dawn I scrawl blue on green-tinted field
Like walking into a cloud on a mountain
Dew clinging to hairs and to silky webs
Bejeweled with beads like a wedding dress
Calves and cows watch a shadowy figure
Crows squawk an outrageous alarm clock
Right outside several unfortunate houses
Wild honeysuckle is a sweet intoxicant as
Like a blue font on a blue field I vanishes
O grasshopper
on your side
on the concrete
that time of year
we must
step
carefully between
door and
driveway
maybe
my wife’s shoe
has maimed you
unawares
but no
pausing and backing
up a step to examine
you black and yellow
green-tinged golden
insect-
dragon
show no signs
of physical injury
except that
you’re on your side
your antennae
limp
in my palm
when your hindleg
tries to
spring
but lacks the
oomph!
Propping you up-
right on a yellow
paper
napkin,
you are my passenger.
I drive us to town,
we get coffee and park.
The harbor is middle-tide.
The mud flats are green.
Gulls swarm for worms:
there you rest
incapable
of
lifting your
carapace,
your thorax
pulsating as
heart and lungs
swell
and unswell
every
two
seconds
almost imperceptibly
on the sunny dashboard.
We listen to holy Sanskrit songs.