Verse

REFLECTIONS:  ON MY BIRTHDAY, 2009

The ice went out with April’s rain, windblown.
The open pond now greets its springtime guests.
The full Egg Moon reflects, like glitter thrown,
Upon the ducks about to build their nests.

The wood ducks drift covertly, just the same.
The mallards squawk, with landing gear alight.
Misnamed ring-necks,
whose bills should claim their name,
Join hooded mergansers, not veiled from sight.

The full Grass Moon reflects, like lilies afloat,
And casts its rays, like arms around the spring,
Embracing sprouts of new aquatic growth,
That’ll feed and shield the soon-to-be ducklings.

My birthday comes, as April opes the pond,
For life to sprout, and hatch, in springtime’s dawn.

Karen Tolman
2009

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As sap buckets are rapidly being replaced by miles of commercial blue plastic tubing, my romantic notions of maple sugaring; collecting sap from the buckets, boiling it down, with family and friends, around a wood-fired back yard pan, dipping homemade donuts into the syrup; have become tangled up in the lines of tubing.

SAPPED

Wounded by drillings,
Bleeding from the holes,
The sap of life flows,
Through vein-like hose,
From the sugarbush trees;

Then sweetens my life
With its gift, sacrificed.

Karen Tolman
2008

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ENTROPY

There’s Grampa splitting wood
He’s fueled by gruel
Cause his teeth aren’t good.

There’s sun on his shoulder
And sweat on his brow
Our lives are tied up in
This heat thing somehow.

After his breakfast is eaten
And wood set alight
He’ll be hungry again
And cold by tonight.

So it’s back to his porridge
And back to his axe
It turns out the old guy
Can never relax

The reason for all this
As most everyone knows
Is that energy comes
And energy goes.

Dave Upton
2005