Happy September 1st to you!

W.H. Auden wrote an acclaimed poem about this day, called September 1, 1939.
It begins:
"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odor of death
Offends the September night."

Toward the end of the poem, he says, "We must love one another or die."
"September 1, 1939" became one of Auden's most famous poems.

Like Poetry at Dawn ...

Like poetry at dawn,
spring tip-toed in the back gate
this morning, all dewy fresh and sparkly,
and inch by inch the day turned golden.
In the garden a woodpecker
chiseled a tree, the poplars whispered
to the cottonwoods, the newly fertile earth
blushed under the sun's lusty gaze
and the lilacs reveled in an orgy of purple.

Ode To A Peony

There was an enormous peony bush growing beneath our dining room window when we moved here many (31) years ago. Even though I've divided it several times, it's bloomed every year since then, providing us with incredible beauty as the tight buds unfurl and reward us with magnificent flowers. I wrote this little poem as a tribute.

PRIMA BALLERINA
In my garden I discover a blossom of palest pink
with layers of petals like a ballerina's skirt.
Center of her narcissitic universe, my fair flower
toe-dances on her dark green stem,

bends deeply to perform a grand plie, almost
touching the ground. Unrehearsed, she executes
an impressive pirouette, spins gracefully
in the gentle summer breeze.

Choreographer, I arrive with basket and scissors.
The blades open and close, open and close.
I arrange her last performance in my crystal bowl
and radiant, she takes her final bow.

A poem: Isabella In The Snow

I sleep and snow falls ...

settles thickly on windowsills,
drifts deeply over graveyard crosses,
covers familiar streets with zigzags of velvety chenille.
The worn-out neighborhood where I've lived
for too many years transforms to alabaster splendor.

The alarm goes off and he brushes
tangled hair from my cheek,
whispers against my ear that it's snowing.
I peek out expecting a few flakes
but everything is buried under layers of white.

I raise the old roller shade,
force open my frozen window to breathe icy air,
lean my forehead against cold glass
watch my breath spread in a frosty cloud.
I think maybe we'll be snowed in together all day.

Then I see them in the backyard snow,
a chain of footprints
linking enormous block letters
carved with a broom handle,
letters that make me smile ...

ISABELLA I LOVE YOU

A poem: For the Girl in the Blue Dress in the Parking Lot at Wal-Mart

The color was periwinkle,
with tiny hand-embroidered flowers,
a cowboy hat perched on her head
and yanked off with a confident flourish,
masses of endless yellow hair
surrounding her perfect oval face.
She linked arms with the skinny boy
in the tight black tee-shirt,
cigarette dangling from his thin red lips.
Hot sun pounded down
burning the tender skin
on her milky shoulders.
She kissed him hard on the mouth,
then disappeared inside the store
in a flash of gold-plated sunlight,
leaving him far behind.