NOVEMBER EXTRA-
ORDINAIRE

The best November asset
just may
be the ride one gets
when Advent’s cusp is passed
and it’s a downhill thrill
to Christmas day.

A young man,
three years in public service
    . . . promoting service . . .
stirred us up
with indiscriminate love affairs,
attracting followers everywhere
and cascading consequences
down to us today.

Never mind the fears that had him treed.
We cling to the news
that he was raised and we were freed
to continue his love story.

And as our November now wears on,
growing its darkness and creepy cold
I question my love affairs.
Are they warm enough?  Consequent free?
Do they light up too few?
And whom do I excuse
as too . . . too?

Come in . . . bring some wood for the fire.
We’ll use candles for atmosphere.
And while we’re here
let’s pause.
Honor the mother
who grew that babe
and cradled his desire
to learn to serve.

Y’all come, y’hear.

DRK
3/30/11

 NOVEMBER REVISITED

Today’s array
of browns and grays
rouses memories
of teenage hunting days -- 
a few pheasants in the weeds,
but mostly cottontails
darting through the brush.
And all the while my buddies and I
harbored dreams of
something WILD.

Above in V’s
ducks and geese took their November leaves --
to exchange icing ponds and chilling air
for exotic who-knows-wheres.
They traveled fast
they traveled high,
like hell-bent SSTs.
We could but stare --
their reach, so far beyond our ken
or youthful hunting expertise.

But any day that we were there,
eager for what came our way,
trophies were bagged,
dragged home and magnified
in the stories we shaped
and would recall.

November, the perfect loom
to weave warp against woof,

imagination and a zest for living,
against autumns coarser fibers.


DRK
6/11/10

 

 

 NOVEMBER BETWEEN

                                                          

Spring drama and summer booty, now cached,

once again Mother Nature changes hats

and Gaudy October yields

to muted November’s aging fields.

Their many shades of browns and grays

underscore our shortening days.

At the fence, long rows

of brown corn stubble lead

to a spray of empty trees.

         Fans framing space

with limbs,

once lost in summer’s earnest greenery,                  

now, chilled,

reveal the interstitial beauty

of their gray twigged filigree.

Come inside.

Let’s toast nature’s annual evening time;

         Let fall your leaves,

         and sag your sap.

Enjoy Mother Nature’s windy music in the cracks.

We’ll light her logs and pour her wine.

Anticipate.

         She’ll soon unpack

         her stunning winter wardrobe wrap.                        

Dennis R. Keefe

November, 2008

 

PEACHTREE

It's time to acknowledge the end of the show
The last yellow leaves
On our backyard birch
Flutter in the cold
Hanging on for dear life and
Their one chance
To experience snow

Autumn began with my favorite tree
A maple, but to me, a peach
Not the one you stand beneath
But the one you strain to reach
Young, light green with fuzz
And a tinge of red

A tinge that used to lead the way

My autumn omen 
For an evolving color blast

New every year

But not this time

A summer storm wrenched that tree

Not even a stump remains

Its early coloring, a sign it seems
Of disease

Across the street

Favorite number two

Taller

With a magnificent spray of orange

which segue's to black branches
And dead dangling leaves
To spook Halloween

The usual progression did occur

A hard freeze whooshed us through
Brilliant reds

And gorgeous oranges and yellows

On the trees 

 

And underneath for a day or two

Then, browned, piled and kicked around

They traveled with the wind from yard to yard

DRK

11/9/19

 

SIDES

 

Did you appreciate the shade?

I did my part today

Any good walnut tree would

The sun, then high in arc, has passed on

Now, low, near done

It highlights my undersides

 

Look up

Try a different angle

I have colors to show

Should you notice

 

 

DRK

10/11/20

7/21/23

 

 

SEPTEMBER SENSE

 

High summer inches toward dog days

And low autumn

The breeze coming through the screens

Rattles the dried up leaves still clinging to the maple tree 

October, a few days away

Warns, take this opportunity

To enjoy light

Laced through walnut and locust leaves

 

I imagine them counting down the weeks

Maybe days

'Til colder winds

Move only conifers and limbs

A different sound, indeed

Frost is next

My heated birdbath's first test

 

DRK

9/23/20

 

 

 

HIGH SUMMER HARVEST

 

First walnut of the year

Up the driveway with squirrel

Seeking to secure

Under the tree in front of me 

But rodent muster

Not passed

Ditto,  the zebra grass 

Around the corner

 

Frozen entree in January?

Or seedling for the new year? 

 

DRK

8/26/20

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SOUND OF HARVEST

HINT:  NOT SILENCE

 

Did you hear it?

The clatter-whump of walnuts 

One minute, hidden up there

The next,

One hundred and forty-one

From tree to grass in seconds

Awesome

Carole counted as she raked, picked

And stored in a yard waste bin

Wait.  Twenty one more in the flower beds

 

The tree sighed in relief

Mission done, nuts on the ground

A gazillion leaves on the way

See you in the spring

 

DRK

9/20/23

 

 

SEDUM RED

 

Sedum red

Sedum red

Put to bed

Mosquitoes

And this muggy-

Ness

 

If you please

Turn the leaves

We’ll chill

Six months or so

No less

 

 

DRK

9/10/21

 

 

 

BACKYARD SUMMER DRAMA

The last dog walked

and garage rolled shut,

backyard stirrings cue

the porch’s invitation

promising tonight’s

summer evening presentation. 

Take a chair

dim the lights.

the curtain rises . . .

to heavy muggy air

settling, darkening to night –                                                              

harkening the first fireflies...

Stage left, then right.

Rise and disappear.

Cricket interludes intrude –

scattered . . .

building . . .

pulsing . . .                                             

to a surround sound

insect etude.

Rock it, cricket, rock it, cricket

rock it, rock it, rock it, rock it, . . .,

          

From a tree,

Excited chirping

sears the air –

trumpeting tension.

Unseen.

Where?

Minute gnats

take the air bringing

twisting bats weaving

through their dinner space.

Then long-awaited fireworks    

slo-mo, everywhere                             

rise and disappear –

a firefly ground finale,                   

ballet sans choreography

the heated evening mating urge, severe.

Rock it, cricket, rock it, rock it, rock it

A stir of breeze;

showers rattle the maple leaves.

The drama cools.

Night’s curtain falls.

Time to  exit

reluctantly

Dennis R. Keefe

May3, 2007

 

SUMMER SOLSTICE FROM THE PORCH

The late afternoon sun sends its rays

Angled high

Down through the leaves

Swirling shadows

That encircle me

A summer sanctuary

 

Serves me

And a passel of birds

I am glad to host

Last minute feeding

Then an announcement 

Of that perfect roost

The angle of the sun lowers

addressing trees higher on the hill

Then climbs those trees

And lifts the day away

A Michigan alpenglow

Dusk, cooling, the wind now gone

The aroma of once freshly cut grass

Now works its way up from the ground

As a more pungent drying hay

Encore

Solar lamps

Pop on before ten

For a moment of cheer

Then gradually dim

Bird chatter, gone

Darkness slips in

Tomorrow’s show begins

With cocktails around four

After Carole, with her hose

Has had a chance to visit

Each new seed and flower

DRK

6/19/20

     NURTURING NATURE’S DANCERS

From the backyard arise
our first fireflies.

Months of magic released, spring’s
annual pool, genes,
from last year’s wintered over
beetle larval leavings.

Now lightning bugs poise
to open summer’s show.

Mates to be sought,
eggs to be wrought.
Their air, warmed and conditioned, just so.


On the day before summer
they danced at dusk.

Now through July,
    seeing it a must,
their daily rise
to a silent frantic
ground finale.


Luminescent genes
egg on the dance
that continues the pool.

DRK
9/13/11

 

TIME TRAVEL AT THE CENTER OF SPACE

Travel to Canaveral, 
and Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge
for rockets and more.

Land turtles, creeping basketballs,
inch their way to the bush.
Gators in the summer heat
retreat to the woods.
Stop for a picture?
Snake bait.

I suggest, for
images to share,
explore
the Kennedy Space Center legacy.

A shuttle crawler, low, shuttered in its track
    recalllng
        slow steady steps into space
    awaits
        the last shuttle, now in stall
        anticipated payload in prep
        for one last space station haul
    and wonders.
        What’s next?

Apollo 8 on display,
its mission complete --
    sent a crew
    to orbit  the moon
    and return.
Experience it with the original cast
and control room technology --
IBM, NASA and Boeing.
The world, awed
at first-time views.

Kids, this is where it all began
on a clear day, December 21, 1968
Apollo 8 took a picture of the U. S. of A.
and your mom’s and my wedding in Lax, GA.

DRK
7/16/11

 

THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING

THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING

    Remembering Chicken Little

Are you struggling to remain small?

Or negotiate old distances?

Physicists have answered the call

There is a movement outward

 

Big Bang!

Have you noticed it? 

When I return to campus, as a retiree

I struggle to get from A to B

For thirty years I traversed this campus

Corner to corner, place to place

From office to classroom

And every imaginable meeting space

It never took this long

Students have always been challenged

To get from one end to the other

But, hats off, their generation is adapting

Through some evolutionary mechanism

Parking lots, our neighborhood

         Insert your own experience here

Everything takes more time

And energy to negotiate

When the universe expands

Everything does

Yonder, people must speak louder to communicate

And I do the same for them

Ladders extend higher

My girth and weight

But the future looks good

When I call upon the young 

They respond with such aplomb

Son, please take this stool 

That light bulb needs to be replaced

That one way up there

DRK

8/28/20