Dawn / Angelina Turning Six

Dawn

(this while training the better part of a year
at Ft. Huachuca, southern Arizona)

The little crimson blossom as it shoots forth

from the tip of a leafy branch

and full-lipped roses unchaffed by the sun,

cooing in the sparkling air,

and the chorus of finch and swallow

as they herald in the dawn outside my window;

and truly the singing mountain ridge which speaks

and speaks to them and to me ceaselessly   ceaselessly,

whose robust arches and gorges, embracing lakes

branch out to draw me into their embrace:

All of this testifies that we are loved where we stand.

As I see, and as I hear,

so also do I love in return, ceaselessly.

And everywhere I turn my beloved turns to me.

Angelina Turning Six
(Berlin, ca. '89, after watching the Moscow Circus)

The green leaves of summer turn to red or flaming yellow

or dusty orange or woody brown;

then drop to the November autumn quiet, mellow

Nature's carpet windswept ground.

With every leaf's appointed curling, circus clowns to other callings

take with them their prancing poodles, pranks, pianos . . .

Each season brings us, in its whirling, closer still to

birthday scrawlings

Crayons, play-doh, pens, computers; camels, hippos, cats and rhinos

march across the stage of childhood dreams and whims and fancy, roaring

out their song of life as five rolls into six.

You turn the page and join the screams of wildness celebrating, soaring

high on swings and swinging high in playground monkey tricks.