Some Mornings
Lemon suffuses everything, its juice a patina on that tawny strand there
fern-soft with a hint of sage.
This winter's lingered long enough
the Spring-thawing toes know still in sensible wellies ready for storage
along with the wool scarves, earmuffs & gloves.
Let mud beneath snow patches gurgle toward gutters
in sudden streams bright as salt on asphalt,
the cracked roadsides for strolling.
Look at those leaves unburied blackened as mulch.
They are feeding the frangipani of what exotic flora
hibernate daydreams imagines these bushes might be.
Their branches rise like antlers in a ceremony for a thing of holiness
& why shouldn't buds come from nubs so the bark beasts
may know worship instead of bullrings featuring arrows & swords?
Next pass cemetery shelters where spirits play hide & seek.
They pass over intersections, throw off traffic lights -
blink, blink, blink - while across the office parking lot
trots one wild turkey.
The architects from the firm next door leave the gas station
breakfast bar fortified with coffee & take out their cell phones,
cameras clicking away.
The turkey trots on, our seasoned traveler from the south.
Pond-bound beyond this stop-gap, he is waltzing for warmth.
He also is ready.
Resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, Stephen Mead has intermittently been submitting work for publication going on four decades. He remains grateful to all of the editors who have given his work a good home as now, retired from his day job, he is busy trying to sell his 40-year backlog of art that you can view here.
