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Nobody planted her

a bird shit out a peach pit

while stealing holly berries

and this maverick

poked her head out

from the holly bush

two springs ago

I had the shears ready

but couldn’t cut

beguiled by the deep fresh

pink of her blossoms

   riotous pink

and so early coming

I left her there  

Last summer I asked

the Mexican yard man

to take her down

but he said he couldn’t

   held up one branch

its leafy underbelly
heavy with pale

fruit pods

that in August

ripened   their

perfume drifting
on the air  ambrosial

the peaches  small

and blushing

their white fruit

three bites of
heaven

Now she springs back

   her ravishing blooms

shame the pest-weary

weeping cherry

and the old apple 

tree who

couldn’t muster

this year and cringes

under a scourge of lichen 

pix and poem copyright Cathy Larson Sky 03/29/2020

THE DRUMS AGAIN

I wrote these lyrics in 1977, when I was involved with the (successful!) movement against a proposed coastal nuclear power plant in Charlestown, RI. The song came back to me this morning, thinking of the brave ones now speaking out for balance, sanity, and the renewal of faith between earth and mankind.

CHARLESTOWN DRUMS

I will stand from my chair

Slowly I will shame the frozen air,

Set my words flying;

Speak the truth and hope it will appear

Before my dying.

The tires and the tractors shock the silence of the stone

Businessmen recite the words their fathers never owned

Every soul, believing it is ruthlessly alone,

Forgets the future.

I walk beside my children

Toward the light I took for granted as a child

The light of morning

My feet retrace the pathways

With the quickness of a rabbit’s beating heart

Beneath the meadow.

Inside smoky offices the Big Ones make their plans

Replace thoughts of balance with the deity of Man

Leaving to the poets all the reverence for land –

They’re dead, not dreaming.

The silence of the forest is the music

Of the senses breathing slow

You’re bound to listen

The sunrise on the ocean is the promise

Of the wedding of all hearts

Choir of color.

As the constellations weave the magic of the stars,

Brilliant white of Venus and the burning red of Mars,

All the earth is shining with the vision that is ours

If we just listen.

copyright cathy larson sky 2011