I call to Coventina in my need To bring to me her blessed healing rain She calls to me with words I feel and heed She sings with showered notes a soft refrain
When Coventina hears the parched who thirst She sings the dulcet songs of living wells When water came to be, she was the first The first to learn the stories water tells
The stories and the songs she shares with all Are filled with brilliant life and brilliant love She loves the life of every waterfall She sings of rain that falls from clouds above
The goddess Coventina comes to heal With water simple words cannot reveal.
The Word of God is everything you write I write The Word of God in structured verse It’s not The Truth, The Truth is not The Light The Word is God like everything perverse
Perversity is such a clever Word It turns away from normalcy with cheek It’s also God; at least that’s what I heard Perversity is when you hear God speak
The Word of God is found in every book And every song whose lyrics are defined By words the poet finds where they might look Whenever God might linger in their mind
So speak or write and know that Thou Art God And know that Words are words and might be flawed.
I found a sonnet on my path today Ironically it sat right on the trail Just past the point where nuts would often lay I often forage words to no avail
But this time I picked up a whole damn verse The squirrels had passed it by like something bad A nut with weevil larvae or much worse I guess they didn’t see it like I had
I heard the sonnet fall through autumn leaves I heard it just before the bridge, the brook Inviting me to cross what it believes That sonnets may be found if one will look
I think i heard the brook call out my name A forager, a sonneteer, the same.
I walk a path adorned by fallen leaves It must be autumn now, the air is crisp A treasure trove of colors, not for thieves Although I steal their colors like a wisp
A wisp of little metaphors, all mine Oh look, the final sigh of maple’s breath The trees prepare to sleep; the trees are fIne The forest path is not the way through death
I walk this living path to comprehend That life is full of seasons to enjoy These vibrant colors do not mark an end They simply show the art the trees employ
The pathway bearing leaves, a living thing Reminds me they’ll be back again in Spring.
I’m not just some “damn yankee” in my mind I’ve foraged all across this fruitful land I find great joy in everything I find Yes, even if it’s not what I had planned
I’ve foraged oysters from the Puget Sound I forage nuts New England loves to share In Utah it was Camas that I found In Idaho there’s rose hips everywhere
But midwest morels always call me back To Michigan, a place I’ve also lived The U.P. doesn’t seem to have a lack My foraging expresses life un-sieved
For foraging, America’s the best Come forage now with me from East to West.
There once was a cuckold named Tom Whose wife thought that she was “da bomb” But when she “went off” The neighbors would scoff And he had to try to stay calm!
The carousel is old, but still it turns Will it succumb to time eventually The gears will rust and rotten wood still burns I try my best to set the horses free
The carousel played music made of joy But now it skips through songs like broken glass A ghostly little girl and ghostly boy At times appear when living children pass
A spooky shortcut to a different time It marks another place where fear is found As if the joy it knew was just some crime And still it’s old, and still it turns around
The carousel is old and we are too The ghosts of kids we see are me and you.
