Remembrance in a Garden

 Remembrance in a Garden

Groundhogs
eat the daylilies,
and usually leave the dahlias.
It is a small lesson,
but important
when you're trying to grow something beautiful.

So I plant dill.
I plant basil.
I plant mint
around the edges,
a fragrant promise.

Why dill?
Why not?

We're German.
We love pickles,
the sharp comfort of memory,
the taste of summer preserved.

The heat settles in,
a heavy quilt of July,
thick with humidity—

the kind of afternoon
when they say you could fry an egg
on a country road.

Maybe bacon, too.

Happy Birthday, America.

Two hundred fifty years,
still learning,
still forgetting,
still beginning again.

I remember another anniversary—
the Bicentennial.

I was almost twenty,
certain I understood the world.
I wore my red, white, and blue dress,
danced beneath fireworks,

believing tomorrow
would keep its promises.

It was just after Watergate.
The country was bruised,
but still breathing.

Gerald Ford stood quietly
where history had left him
and offered no victory,
only healing.

"Our long national nightmare is over."

Not a boast.
A hope.

He served,
then stepped aside,
accepting both office and defeat

with uncommon grace.

His farewell was not about himself.

It was a prayer:

May God guide this wonderful country,
its people,
and those who choose to serve them.

Amen.

Now, fifty years later,
the groundhog returns,
testing the garden once again.

Still, I plant.

I tuck hope beneath the soil,
ring the borders with herbs,
believe that what survives

can bloom.

Because remembrance
is not longing for a perfect past.

It is choosing,
season after season,
to tend what is worth saving,
to gather what is good,
and to leave behind
a garden of faith
for those who come after us.

 

Reclaiming My Territory

 Reclaiming My Territory

Breaking news:
The house sparrows have annexed the airspace above my front door.

The eaves, of course, were occupied years ago
an old colony with squatters' rights
and no interest in negotiating.

Now they're skirmishing with the fat, fuzzy bees
who insist the windows are disputed territory.

No one consulted the humans.

I have concerns.

Birds are tiny, feathered landlords.

They decorate with twigs,
redecorate with droppings,
and then look at you as though you're behind on the rent.

They're absurdly adaptable.

Tenacious.

Ridiculously fertile.

Four broods a year, if the mood strikes.

They don't just survive
they franchise.

Each morning they launch from the eaves
like a squadron of miniature fighter pilots,
all banking and looping in impossible formation

the Blue Angels,

if the Blue Angels wore brown pajamas
and screamed at six in the morning.

Summer has arrived.

Which means I'm preparing my own campaign.

I'll reclaim the front porch
one lawn chair at a time.

I'll bring a novel,
a sweating glass of lemonade,
light the citronella candle
like a ceremonial beacon of human sovereignty,

and keep a fly swatter nearby

less as a weapon,

more as a reminder

that every kingdom
needs a slightly exasperated queen.

Wish me luck.

 

Sunday is Dedicated to the Pigs

 Sunday is Dedicated to the Pigs

On Sunday, we journey to Piggy Stand
The funniest place in the whole darn land.
Where legends snort and jelly jiggles,
And every tale brings squeals and giggles.

Meet Zig the Pig—what a glorious sight!
Four hundred years old and still doing all right.
With a belly of jelly that wiggles with pride,
And a heart so enormous it barely fits inside.

He lives for lemon cake piled up high,
with lemon ice cream reaching the sky.
Fresh coffee, good friends, and stories galore
He'll happily chat four centuries more!

Soft, squishy, pudgy, and sweet,
Cuddling Twig is his favorite treat.

His guitars line up beside his bed,
Next to jellybean mountains of orange and red.
Ghosts and goblins float through each night,
Heading for snacks before the first light.

Halloween makes their little hearts sing,
Pirates and costumes? Oh, bring everything!
Music and cuddles complete the scene;                                                 they’re the happiest pigs you've ever seen.

Except when Zig reads the paper with a worried sigh.
"What's happened?" he mutters, rolling one eye.
Twig would prefer to hide in her bed
And pull the blankets over her head.

Instead, she's writing a marvelous tale,
Where Katya the cat will surely prevail.
With cousin Tiki, they zoom through time
Probably to avoid the current headlines.

Once, long ago, Zig taught history,
His students all thought he was a grade A mystery.
They still remember his stories today...
Though some claim the dinosaurs were audited, okay?

Zig also reveres fine watches with pride.
A Ball watch once rode on his stylish hide.
In front of Mohonk Mountain House, he struck quite the pose
A famous watch magazine said, "There he goes!"

Online, you'll find him most every day,
Posting photos in his own cool way.
Watches and music are high on the list...
But belly dancers also can't be missed!

He cheers their talent, grace, and flair,
And has made good friends from everywhere.
Because Zig believes life's simply better
With laughter, music, and good friends together.

So here's to the pigs who brighten our week,
To the cuddly, the quirky, the silly, the unique.
May your belly stay jiggly, your talents soon sprout,
And your jellybeans never...ever...run out!

The Saturday Cat Council

 The Saturday Cat Council

There is a village, tucked out of sight,
Where cool cats gather every Saturday night.
At dusk, they assemble with regal flair,
To gossip and plot with a judgmental stare.

Wise cats.
Fat cats.
Chatty cats.
Brat cats.
Purring cats.
Trilling cats.
Murmuring, mewing, and "Feed me!" cats.

Their fearless leader? Felis catus, of course—
Tiny in size yet commanding the force.
If one gives a slow blink, don't panic or hiss;
Congratulations—you've received a cat kiss.

But don't get too smug. Don't get too bold.
Their trust has a warranty of twelve seconds, I'm told.
One mighty MEOW! and you'll instantly see
They've promoted themselves to your royalty.

Descended from Felidae, Order Carnivora,
Masters of zoomies, chaos, and flora.
With night vision sharp and hearing supreme,
They detect snack wrappers for miles, it would seem.

Their noses are flawless, their instincts refined;
Your hidden tuna? Already they'll find.
They speak in a language no human can crack—
Part Shakespeare, part opera, part demanding a snack.

Some scholars insist, with remarkable passion,
Their dialect comes from Old High Valyrian.
Sadly, the translators all disappeared...
Probably because they ignored a cat and got weird.

And if, late at night, in a shadowy alley,
A chorus of growls begins to rally—
With snarls and spits and chattering teeth...

Do not run,

 or they'll chase.

Walk backward slowly with dignity intact,
Then toss them a treat as a diplomatic act.

For every cat knows, beyond all debate,
The universe spins because they are great.
You're not their owner—you never were that.
You were merely employed...by a high-born cat.

Nothing is Wasted

 Nothing Is Wasted

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.”
—Henry James

The first sentence
is a worn trail marker,
leaning where two paths divide.
I follow it.

Miles later,
it leads me across a stream
inside a story
I didn't know I was walking.

A trail map fades.
Rain freckles its pages.
A route I crossed out
waits beneath the pencil's ghost,
still pointing.

Nothing is wasted.

The dust of the trail
settles into my boots
with yesterday's miles.

The ridge ahead
imagines tomorrow's weather.
Both leave a mark
no stream of consciousness can fully wash away.

Inside the data centers,
machines map every switchback
without ever feeling thin air,
without the weight
of a tired friend
leaning on your shoulder.

Meanwhile,
we climb one more rise
though daylight is thinning.

The summit is still ahead—
a small ambition
lifting its face
against a crag of silence.

Still,
the peak borrows our footsteps
to reveal its paths.

The trails we abandoned,
the wrong turn,
the loose stone,
the single weary step,
becomes the way forward.

We wander.
We blister.
We wait for one another,

exploring new twists and turns

in our boundless quest

to rewrite the world.

 

 

Thinking Beyond the Trope

 Thinking Beyond the Trope

He was a legend in his own mind.

She was the damsel in distress.

When they met, even the lesser gods exchanged weary glances.

Zeus, meanwhile, was having the time of his immortal life.

The getaway car wouldn't start.

In fact, it wouldn't start for almost forty years.

Why does that sort of thing happen?

Destiny?

Nerves?

It can be nerve-racking, after all, sitting in a getaway car, waiting for bank robbers to come bursting out of a building naked and triumphant after the storm.

That had been the plan.

They were supposed to change clothes at the bar down the street—the one where clothing was optional, and questions were discouraged.

Not that the car was going anywhere.

It sat stubbornly at the curb, contemplating eternity.

The bar was close enough to see.

The night was young.

And it was 11:00  on a Saturday. 

The Green Jungle

 The Green Jungle

The green jungle
outside my window
conceals mysteries—

what my neighbor is up to,
where the cats disappear,
what stirs beneath the leaves.

Hell, that jungle is thick,
so thick I think of cutting it down.

Mostly because it shelters snakes
and other creatures,
hiding in its tangled shadows.

Critters like Tiki,
and maybe even
a time machine.

Grandma smiles at me
from the windowsill,
as if she can read my thoughts.

But she is a distant memory now,
a voice from a vanished world.

She lived through World War II
in a shattered Germany,
with five children to feed.

Fleeing from one relative's house
to another in the middle of the night,
while bombs fell from the sky,
leaving only moments to escape.

One of those children
was my mother.

In 1945 she was nine years old.

Most of what they endured
remains hidden inside her pretty head,
buried beneath the years.

Perhaps that is one of God's graces—
That memory spared her
some of the horror.

But her body remembers.

It remembers hunger.
It remembers scarcity.
It remembers not knowing
who was friend or foe.

Before the victors divided the country,
before borders hardened
between East and West,
my mother escaped westward.

She was one of the lucky ones.

And as I stare into the jungle
outside my window,
I wonder what else survives unseen—

the snakes,
the cats,
the forgotten stories,

and the roots of old fears
still growing beneath the surface,
hidden like a forest
too dense to enter.

The White Rain

 The White Rain

 

The summer garden of us was lush,
until the frost bit deep.
We wake to a landscape
turned suddenly stark,
snapping the roots.
The clock fractures open,
and we let the debris scatter.
It is an ending, quiet as ash,
and the air settles still.

I refuse to drown the floor
in the white rain of what is spilt.
I am no showy Willow,
bending my spine in a theatrical weep,
Draping long green sleeves
to court the indifferent earth,
Flirting with the passing wind,
putting on a tragedy
for God knows who.

Yesterday’s downpour
is already a ghost on my skin,
long evaporated.
I am only a silhouette
leaning over the well of sweet, toxic memory,
Straining to see the reflection
of why I ever built the bridge at all,
As if a heart ever required
a logical blueprint to ruin itself.

You asked if the world harbored
a quiet malice against my name.
The shadows are too shallow
to hold a grudge that heavy, Marty—
There is not enough warmth
left in the heart to care.

 

I Rang the Bell, Didn't I?

 I Rang the Bell, Didn't I?

The joke was stupid,
but the punchline hit like lightning
through a church steeple.

Better than Viagra.
Better than anything
sold behind a pharmacy counter
or whispered across a parking lot at midnight.

For one glorious second,
the universe coughed up a win.

Now every day arrives wearing yesterday's clothes.

The clocks run backward.
The headlines molt and grow the same diseased feathers.
We're trapped in a carnival ride
operated by drunk historians.

Who's on first?
What's on third?
Who burned down the rulebook?
Who replaced it with a coloring book and a flamethrower?

The air tastes like pennies,
old grievances,
and freshly laundered lies.

Racism hangs over everything
like a dead possum in the attic—
bloated,
stinking,

impossible to ignore.

I'd just like to breathe
without inhaling someone else's delusion.

I want the tirade to end.
I want the fever to break.
I want normal to stumble back through the door
looking rough,
missing a shoe,
but alive.

Instead, we're all waiting for Season Three.

Not a polite season.
Not a prestige-drama season.

House of the Dragon season.

Dragon fire turning tyrants into barbecue.

Crowns melting into puddles.
Egos scattered across the countryside
like loose teeth after a bar fight.

Heads roasted.
Limbs crushed.
Entrails decorating the landscape
with all the subtlety of modern politics.

Let the whole miserable circus
reach its final act.

Then sweep up the ashes.

Strike up the band.

And for the love of God,

let me dance.

The "M" stands for Mouth-breathing

 The "M" stands for Mouth-breathing

The "F" stands for Fake.

MF.

A fitting title for a man who thinks a Peace Prize should be awarded for collecting dictators like baseball cards.

You think Putin is your friend?

Putin doesn't have friends. He has assets, obstacles, and future obituaries.

To him, you're that mosquito trapped inside the bedroom at 2 a.m.—loud, irritating, and one slap away from becoming a stain on the wall.

And then there's China.

Not because they admire you.

Because somewhere, a team of scientists is desperate to discover how a brain can be simultaneously overused and underdeveloped.

You are living proof that confidence can survive without evidence.

It's remarkable.

Engineers study structural failures.

Economists study market failures.

Historians now have you.

A one-man case study in how ego can achieve escape velocity while intelligence remains firmly grounded.

You wanted to make history.

Congratulations.

You did.

Just not in the chapter you were hoping for.

You're filed somewhere between "avoidable mistakes" and "what were they thinking?"

Future generations won't ask how you changed the world.

They'll ask how the world let you keep trying.

That's your legacy.

Not a Peace Prize.

A cautionary tale.

  

The Awakening

 The Awakening

Wake up.
The clock is ticking in reverse.
You sleep inside a velvet hearse.
You dream of infinite supply.
While rivers fade and forests die.

The cat looks down with dizzy eyes.
And laughs at all your golden lies.
Your billions cannot buy the spark.
To fix the engine in the dark.

The time machine is missing gears.
To fly beyond these heavy years.
Before the basket burns to ash.
And all your limitless illusions crash.

You move in rhythm, perfect, slow.
A zombie dance is all you know.
Hypnotized by what you own.
While sitting on a hollow throne.

A gaping hole begins to tear.
Through fabric made of empty air.
You are the ghost; you are the seed.
You are the story that you breed.

So tell yourself a better tale.
Before the final anchors fail.
Look back to see where you have been.
The past is where the truths begin.

Remember what the silence cost.
Remember everything you lost.
Remember…
Remember…

The Reflecting Pool

 The Reflecting Pool

 

The surface should be perfectly still,
reflecting every approved procedure,
every box checked, every signature filed.
A model of order.

Never mind the algae bloom.
Never mind the growing heap of mistakes
rotting quietly at the water’s edge.

“YOU’RE FIRED,” rings across the lawn.

Problem solved.

Because nothing cleans a polluted pond
like tossing one or maybe thirteen unlucky fish onto the bank.
Because accountability is most effective
when it travels exclusively downhill.

We can simply agree the disasters were anomalies,
the warnings were unclear,
the experts were biased,
and the evidence was taken out of context.

When the glass begins to crack,
we'll blame the temperature.
When the foundation sinks,
we'll commission a report on gravity.

And if confidence starts to waver,
I know the perfect distraction:
let's bomb another country.

The markets will love it.
The flags will wave.
The headlines will cooperate.

That ought to prove we're in control.

And if somehow that doesn't work,
we could always try a coup—

though, in fairness,
it helps to know how to spell democracy
before attempting to overthrow one.

 

Fair-Weather Princess

 Fair-Weather Princess

A fair-weather princess
once wandered gardens long.
But she had no use for rain,
or getting wet in song,
with either friend or foe.

She's devoted to calm,
avoids forecasts in principle,
files storms under unacceptable
and thunder under whimsical.

"Better viewed from afar," she'd say,
than splashed in this weather’s mess."
So she built a moat of umbrellas
around her happiness.

By dodging every cloud,
every puddle, every scar,
she slowly turned herself
into a pickle in a jar—

sealed against the tempest,
safe from every squall and squirm,
until the rain she feared the most
was life itself, confirmed.

 

Juneteenth: Turning Towards Dawn

 Juneteenth: Turning Toward Dawn

Freedom was signed.
The door stayed open.

A clause stood there,
small as a nail,
strong as iron:
the Thirteenth Amendment’s
hidden seam.

Except as punishment for crime.
Angola rose
from plantation dirt.

The fields remembered.
The hands remembered.
The law did not.
They called it justice.

The whip
learned another name.
Black codes
walked softly,
turning free men
back into property.

A charge became a sentence.
A sentence became a body.
A body became profit.
The convict lease
bound the loophole tight.
Men were sold
to roads,
to levees,
to fields without names.

The state counted money.
The towers
counted men.
The country rang bells
for freedom.

Freedom waited
behind the loophole.

Years passed.
Decades passed.
Lives passed.

Then came another promise,
The Fourteenth Amendment
written after blood,
after ash,
after the country had seen
what it had done.

Section One spoke clearly:
Born here,
you belong here.
The Citizenship Clause
erasing Dred Scott’s stain.

No state
may take your life,
your liberty,
without Due Process.
No state may deny
your equal place
beneath the law.

Equal Protection
carved into the stone.

Yet the states resisted.
The shadows fought the light.
So the authors built a weapon:
Section Five.
The Enforcement Power.

The gavel swung.
Congress claimed the authority
to pass the acts,
to march the troops,
to break the codes by force.
The constitution was given teeth.

The words were small.
The hope was not.

Juneteenth is not late history.
It is a bell
still learning
how to ring true.

It is a promise
dragged through chains,
but not buried.

It is the law,
slow as stone,
beginning—
at last—
to turn toward dawn.

And dawn,
when it comes,
must come carrying justice.

 

Painsomnia

A tweaked-up knee, a darkened stair,
a midnight curse, a silent prayer.
You missed the pill, you skipped the dose,
and now painsomnia lingers close.

It takes the stage, demands applause,
ignoring all good sleeping laws.
An encore act you didn't book,
yet there it stands with a knowing look.

So leave the bed. Abandon sleep.

This night's ambitions clearly run deep.
Head to the kitchen, calm and slow,
where fellow insomniacs often go.

Pour up some ice. Pour up some tea.
Negotiate terms with that mutinous knee.
Then grab the AARP, my friend,
a source of wisdom without end.

Forget the phone, the screen, the glare.
An actual magazine waits there!
While others toss and curse the night,
you're being educated outright.

You'll learn of diamond intersections,
and proper seatbelt inspections.
You'll master how a roundabout
can smooth your traffic stresses out.

You'll discover how to safely share.                                                                               narrow lanes with cyclists there.
And, best of all, the crown jewel still:
the proper hand grip/steering-wheel tilt and angle.

Adjust it just so, left and right,
to spare your face in an airbag flight.

Who knew an aching joint could bring,
such useful automotive tutoring?
What started as a swollen knee
became a graduate degree.

I'll leave you here to contemplate
the many steps that age creates:
the pills, the aches, the midnight quests,
the magazines we once called "rests."

Perhaps aging well is not a race
but learning all these things with grace.

 

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

 

Bright Bluets have four 

But Forget-Me-Nots have five 

Petals are the tell.

 

Quaker Ladies form

a tight cross shape and wink.  They

are native stars now.

 

Both have yellow hearts

One bright bloom will eye you up

one will lure you in.

 

The Native Starlet 

is a cousin of coffee.

They love sunny lawns.

 

The foreigner is  

bound to moist and shady banks

Changing color now

 

The dreamy Icon

lush, wild, and packed with folklore

sweeps suitors away.

  

X-Ray Prophets

 X-Ray Prophets

 

These days, you need a machete—

Crocodile Dundee big—

to hack a vein through this jungle of dark.

How does anyone sleep?

Once, young and feral,

I could sleep through thunder,

through houses collapsing in dreams.

Now arthritis tolls its iron bell;

pain sits on the porch with a shotgun.

I turn and turn,

a stranded animal nosing the brush

for one patch of moss,

one warm stone of bliss

inside the swamp-thick doubt

that anything changes.

Maybe it does.

But when strangers climb into my skull

with flashlights and weather maps,

I leave.

No shelter from X-ray prophets

mistaking roots for bones,

blind to the green fire

rising beneath the soil.

The phone hums in my hand

like a tagged hornet.

The zombies know our names,

know the shape of our hunger.

Still, sight is a prescription bottle

with half the label scratched away;

speech, a window breathing itself opaque.

Trust half of seeing,

none of the static.

Believe in a cracked lantern

swinging through rain.

The crow, stitched to the power line.

The thorn, working deeper under the skin.

Pennies dissolving on the tongue

like blood and electricity.

Or the smoke of

black orchids opening

where the dark learns to flower.

 

The Evolution of a Few Words

 The Evolution of a Few Words

Words are slippery little things;
They change their coats and grow new wings.
What once was true may now sound odd—
A prank by language? A gift from God?

Nice once meant a foolish fool,
not someone charming, calm, or cool.
To call you nice in days of yore
was not a compliment at all, for sure.

Explode meant clapping, loud and grand,
a thunderous roar throughout the land.
And loud applause? Well, strangely enough,
meant, “Hook that actor—the show's too rough!”

If something seemed plausible, they'd say,
“It deserves applause!” Hip hip hooray!
Not likely, sensible, or probable—
just clap-worthy and laudable.

A bully once was a darling dear,
a sweetheart you'd hold forever near.
“I love that lovely bully,” they'd coo—
Quite different from what bullies do.

And buxom? Here's a twist to note:
it once meant obedient, not low-cut coats.
A dutiful soul who'd do as told,
before curves and glamour entered the fold.

To disappoint was not heartbreak's sting,
but removing someone from a lofty thing.
To appoint or disappoint—that was the game;

Shakespeare would surely approve the claim.

A fizzle was a modest breeze,
a quiet escape, if you please.
A gentle puff, discreetly sent—
Though sadly, not always odorless in intent.

And luxury? Believe it or not,
it wasn't yachts or a fancy yacht spot.
It meant lust and lechery run amok—
“Foul luxurie!” cried the scandalized flock.

As for popularity, here's the twist:
it wasn't liked on a social list.
It meant democracy's weighty decree—
A political matter in 1546, you see.

So words march onward, year by year,
growing stranger, shifting gear.
Meanings wander, drift, and roam—
No word stays forever at home.

And if you think language should stay one way,
history laughs and says, “No chance today.”

What Doesn't Kill You

What doesn’t kill you

makes you stronger,

wiser,

and strangely qualified to disappear in a third-world country.

But maybe that’s just the deluxe package.

I’ve been part of this experiment since the '90s,

which means statistically

I should have grown a second head by now.

Food was the best scam.

"Feeding the world,"

they said,

while quietly inventing ingredients

that sound like rejected Star Wars characters.

I don't trust food. I don't trust people who pause too long before speaking.

I don't trust people who remember things

that happened three presidents ago

and somehow involve me.

Get a hobby.

Raise a fern.

Learn pottery.

Stop collecting my life like baseball cards.

Meanwhile,

the gun has fired,

and somehow I'm still here. Actually sitting.

Hydrated.

Moderately annoyed.

Which is impressive,

considering I spent thirty-six years

on an island with a f**king maniac.

He was Trump to the Nth degree,

a mathematical impossibility

with opinions.

And guess what?

I'm here.

He's not. What color are your socks?

Mine are red, white, and blue.

Not all red.

Not all blue.

This isn't cable news.

Try to keep up.

I'm talking fifty shades of survival.

One step ahead of the bread line.

One step ahead of dehydration.

One step ahead of becoming a true-crime podcast episode.

And if they ever find me dead in my car

with the AC blasting

and the engine running,

they'll shake their heads and say:

"Damn.

She was a tough one."

Because she had a mission.

A plan.

An attitude problem.

And absolutely no intention

of letting reality

have the last word.