Purim pending

Dim rag of moon hangs in the East-most pines,
to photobleach as soon as it's bright day.
The tidal tug of both great orbs aligns
to lay seas bare as waters ebb away.
Adar impends! An end to many things;
next year, we pray our masks are just for fun.
For now, we play at princesses, and kings
a final fling sends off the year that's done.
Four New Years mark each circuit as we're twirled
'though "this shall be the first of months for you".
A constant as our history's unfurled;
the calendar's ordained, if you're a Jew.
Brief pre-dawn glimpse of sky, before it's gone
ferments in poets' brains like scraps of song.

gambit

The Finns remember rolling Russia back,
and coach Ukrainians to snipe from trees.
In dead of winter, patriots attack,
while Putin's conscripts snivel, drink, and freeze.
On Christmas Eve, we crossed the Delaware,
and took the Hessians roughly from behind.
Their London masters sniffed "that's scarcely fair!"
But no one pays those poofters any mind.
In asymmetric war, we give no pause;
invaders would just use it to re-arm.
The Kremlin's violated 'stablished laws;
they're not the side that's suffered grievous harm.
The empire Romanovs and Stalin grew
outlived its age, but losing here, it's through.

Frozen lines

The word's gone out:"we need cold weather gear
to drive invaders from our native land"
And Finland understands the Russian Bear
is vulnerable to a well-dressed man.
The million troops that Josef Stalin lost
to move a boundary stone, and claim some woods,
still sets the bar for what such wars can cost.
But Ruskyi Myr's gone "poof", this time for good.
Attrition reigns, where blitzkrieg failed to stun;
arms depots are depleted by the fray.
Entrenched like nightmares out of WorldWarOne.
The chance to shock and awe has slipped away.
Ukrainians appreciate the love
but with artillery rounds, please send gloves.

rosh hashanah

By equinox, Orion's high and bright
reminding us it's time to sharpen skis.
Free calendar republished night by night
for those mistrustful of technologies.
The StarLink constellation's something new;
Koheleth scowls, but nothing's to be done.
Illuminated just before dawn's due
Aloft, but plainly well beneath the sun.
Few city dwellers ever get to know
that Nature can't be bounded in a park.
Bedazzled by the artificial glow
they lose the wonderment of primal Dark.
A glimpse of sky sets poets' minds ablaze
as much at night as on the bluest days.

Heat Dome

half idaho's ablaze; its filth's spewed wide;
particulates too small to settle down
from Puget Sound to Continent's Divide
paint skies like Mordor's many shades of brown.
All outdoor sports events must be deferred;
asthmatics struggle for their every breath.
A year of pulmonary wear's incurred
for every week we're casting dice with Death.
Each photon intercepted overhead
destroys the lapse-rate soaring pilots love.
Black-body shifted down to bleary red
the atmosphere's still warmed, but from above.
Grim legacy from when the West was cool/\
presents a terrifying pool of fuel.

New Normal

the EastBay's not inured to heat and smog
that withers plants on Torrance windowsills.
Here, Summer's moderated by the fog
that shoots the Gate to curl against the hills.
It's when the wind swing East that Hell breaks loose;
the Breath of Mordor roars down that terrain
those gracious homes can roast you like a goose
when eucalyptus blossom into flame.
In places no one lived before A/C,
a blackout could prove lethal pretty soon.
A forest pool, or just a verdant tree
is worth your life on such an afternoon.
John Wesley Powell pre-viewed what's to come,
but never dreamt home buyers'd be so dumb.

It's about time

The moon of Nisan ripens in the sky,
A dusty mirror showing us our sun.
A parting glance at one more year gone by,
with opportunities now gone and done.
And then to dwindle, ceding back the Night,
To stars that bleach the shadows she'd have cast,
contributing their dimmed, red-shifted light
originating eons in the past.
A festival of freedom, pent indoors

by yet a latest plague in the old mold.
While we retell the ten that went before
as if we'd lived through what transpired of old.
An opportunity shared to reflect
on what has gone before, and what comes next.

passages

Pristine white landscapes, stark in ice and snow
grow messy as the weather turns to mud.
It's necessary as the seasons flow;
The skiing can't be prime as fruit trees bud.
I'm not so trim myself as once I was;
The abs that once stood taut, now lurk within.
My chin bears shrubberies, where once was fuzz,
and everywhere I'm wearing too much skin.
The caryatid crushed beneath her stone
that Heinlein wrote about so movingly,
looks different now her fate's more like my own;
old texts transformed by our maturity.
My muddy, battered boots dry in the sun;
another metamorphosis, begun.

Christmas

The shortest day's behind; Dark's tenure's torn
as--sinusoidally--we exit Night.
The Newtons celebrate; a child's been born
who'll teach the world a new regard for Light.
The Renaissance was slow to cross the sea
Great Britain's sundered from the continent.
But no one boasts a brighter prodigy,
the shining lamp of the Enlightenment.

In all his age, outshining kings for fame

not for his bloodlines, but what he could do.

The Earth and stars will never be the same
sir Isaac bade us see the world anew.

Each child's potential--who can name its worth?
Great things unfolded from this Winter birth.

rounding the mark

At perihelion, doomed to tip away
Our Northern hemisphere feels starved for light.
The Winter solstice ticks our shortest day;
It's drinking season on this longest night.
Spinoza's clockwork cosmos calls the dance;
elliptically, we're whirled from far to near.
No least detail is left to random chance;
each step's foretold within the solar sphere.
Beginning Winter as we round the mark
We flock to ski resort, or skating rink.
The party season peaks when all is dark;
we've learned it's bad to sit alone and drink.
It's complicated, living on this ball! 
For now, we bid good riddance to this Fall.

antiscorbutic

In riotous profusion by the trail,
their weight bears skinny branches down to earth.
In Huckleberry season, bring a pail!
Those jams are worth your life in months of dearth.
Diseases that bedeviled us through time,
attributed to deities enraged,
until the Royal Navy found the lime,
few sailors lived  to reach robust old age.
Exacerbating all, they kept pet cats
to guard their precious biscuits while at sea.
In ignorance that--unlike Man--those rats
can synthesize their own vitamin 'C'.
The summer hillside flush with fleeting wealth
Can cannily be canned for lasting health.

solipsist

Two swallows loop and swoop and bill and bond,
as if between the twain, they shared one mind.
A pas de deux split by the glassy pond;
this pair are  closest kin, and more than kind.
A mirror cosmos, swapping left for right,
accessible at water's interface.
Insensible to scent, but plain to sight
might fill--like ours--infinity of space.
Each swoop, the partner's there to keep the date,
no straying eye could tease the pair apart.
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate;
four wings in sync beat to a single heart.
To love the Other like one's self seems right,
but this one's just a trick of bending light.

apparition

Pink clouds of cherry blossoms levitate
upon a sea in countless shades of green
a challenge for the mind to contemplate
within three pounds of squishy wet machine.
If clouds wax pink, why need a sky be blue?
and must your lexicon comport with mine?
The frequencies reflected set the hue,
but conversation's tinted by each mind.
The qualium evoked when you see "red"
might differ from what I call by that name.
I can't know what goes on inside your head,
'though lazily, I treat the two the same.
A vernal contemplation en pleine air
is pretty, 'though I can't be sure what's there.

turn of the year

On winter solstice, Nine set out, put Rivendell behind
The glowing hearth, the sound of song, were banished from their minds
Strange Quest! Whose purpose was to lose a treasure (not to find)
One mage, one elf, one dwarf, two men, and four of Hobbit kind.
Tall Boromir expected crowds to cheer him on his way
and damsels vying for his glance in Samite dresses gay.
He blew a ringing trumpet-blast, a strutting cock at play
But Gandalf scowled and warned he'd take that noisy toy away.
The Morgul-blade that narrowly stopped short before it's mark
spared Frodo, and he'd healed in time, in Elrond's verdant park.
'Though only Bill went cheerfully, as if it were a lark,
they left at dusk and stealthily pressed Southward in the dark.
Through Kazad Dum, through vernal Wood, through snow and fetid mire,
beyond all hope, they cast the ruling Ring into the Fire.

glorious Summer

Midsummer day, the Lady Arwen wed
To Aragorn, who'd waited all his life.
'Though all his cohort passed and long lie dead,
he's in his prime to take his high-born wife.
Earendil's  two lines  conjoin again
like Luthien took Beren long ago
as elvish lords, and kings of mortal men
rejoice in victory's soft afterglow.
One Age has passed, one Age begins with cheers.
'Though much of ancient grandeur most now fade
the wedding turns our minds to coming years
as genes and memes march down the long parade.
The narrative turns a portentous bend
but more remains to tell, before book's end.

Companions

At equinox, he left the Riddermark
on Shadowfax to hasten Frodo's way.
'Though Saruman'd gone wholly to the Dark,
some puissant allies still defied his sway.
While Mithrandir sought counsel with the Wise,
four hobbits took the parlous road to Bree,
where Aragorn--still in his Ranger's guise--
was welcomed to their growing Company.
One elf, one dwarf, plus Boromir the Tall,
at Imladris, at nobody's behest
responded to a Higher Power's call
to make the Nine entrusted with the Quest.
Such links we forge in times of mortal strife
lend joy and purpose in this fleeting life.

dilatory

The Europeans gave Theresa May
six month to own the letter she had sent.
A bonus, supernumerary stay
to seize the reins of her own parliament.
Bob Mercer'd spent a wad in BREXIT's cause,
and Putin blandished Britons to believe
no sov'reign nation bows to Brussels' laws
when members took a hankering to LEAVE.
Entrepreneurs hate the uncertainty.
And bankers want to know what's gonna come.
they'll take their capital, and pack and flee;
increasingly, it's clear Theresa's dumb.
In desperation, some turn to the Queen
to save us from this frightful Halloween

summer storm

Coy virga leave the ground unsatisfied
it's hot, thick breath's been wasted on thin air
the gust-front kicks around what laid there, dried
but all its moisture's carried off, elsewhere.
The desert flora specialize in dearth,
but every year or two, still need a storm
delivering redemption to the Earth
in places where to desiccate's the norm.
Bright scarves of rain, dark veils of steel-grey sleet
with thunder syncopating melodies
still leave this courtship dangling, incomplete
nine times in ten, it's just a dry-run tease.
When wadis gush, and grabens inundate
each Blue Moon sees this drama consummate.

under pressure

The crocus thrusting past the dregs of snow
to pass its genes along, can't miss the date.
Banked glucose from last Fall's spent now to grow
to rendezvous with bugs that pollinate.
While salmon hatching out in gravel beds
rely on plagues of insects to wax great,
concatenated species, "food" and "fed"
choreographed to each proliferate.
'Til CO2 knocks all of this awry
each Spring thaw sets another record-mark;
red photons that should leak into the sky
get tangled in our blanket, 'though all's dark.
Darwinian biology of change
may not keep up as Climate gets deranged.

glimmers

Fresh snow-melt churns and scours the turbid creek
and crocuses thrust leaves and flower-buds forth
this February thaw may prove a freak
rebirth seems imminent, here in the North.
While Florida, and Texas suffer snow,
our Winter's preternaturally mild
caressed by the warm, moist Southwestern flow,
the grumpiest is presently beguiled.
Tomorrow night may bring another frost,
the jetstream that had veered, perchance will back.
Untimely vernal blossoms may be lost
like sunset's colors winking into black.
Dark months before the skiers' final fling,
imagination grasps at straws of Spring.