A Pound of Butter is Four Sticks

 

Four or five sticks of butter,

not heavy, but understandable.

Less than 24 week premature baby,

weighs the same but

incredible and almost incomprehensible.

Viable, maybe—looks like a tiny doll,

desirable, it depends on so many things,

difficult to manage, yes,

technology helps, but

the ultimate outcome,

unpredictable.

 

Sutton Island

 

Lesser and greater Cranberries,

accessible only via mail boat unless you own.

It took years of signing up to finally get a week,

only twelve each summer.

No roads, just paths, a couple of docks. Haul

in what you need; haul out what’s left when you leave.

The old cottage with super steep steps to the second floor,

old plumbing, vintage kitchen made for the setting or visa versa.

No one around except fish hawks and hornets and various

critters. We explored the island left no litter.

I went to my knees when a hornet hit me in the leg—never

stung like that before or since.

The water was too cold for me; the kids loved it. We

collected mussels ten yards from the porch. I steamed

them, ate them, but the rest of family said no.

If only I could fish like those hawks. Their enormous

nests dominated the shore line. They circle and

dive, technique sublime; perching in trees or their roosts

scanning before airborne again.

After a week, we packed, walked slowly to the dock,

waited for the mail boat to take us back to Northeast

Harbor while savoring every minute of our adventure.

 

Alas, there are no more weeks,

too complicated and expensive to maintain so

house sold, perk gone, faculty sad, an administrator’s

priorities—a great loss.

 

Did You Feel That?

 

particle soup–new ones discovered and added as

detectors and accelerators get more gigantic—leading me to

question about unexplained lightening pains in this or that

body part which might reflect a super rare subatomic

interaction between one of these zillions of particles mostly

neutrinos passing through us with one hitting a random

nucleus producing enough energy to wreak quarky chaos

 

Cure all

Home-made chicken soup

Jewish penicillin

good for almost everything

also tasty for Gentiles

 

Discovery

 

flashes of understanding

appear suddenly with

magical clarity

unexpected, satisfying

not a phantom, but a clear

path to insight

obscured previously by the

miasma prevailing—

a mind unprepared or unreceptive

to see through our ignorance

 

Dank and Dark

 

Low overcast

grey, raining

enough to conjure

darkest thoughts

of transgressions made

and not yet made

deepening the regret of

options lost

by unkind actions or

biased implication

when thoughtful talk

could have made it right