Who is That Absurd Old Man? - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Who is That Absurd Old Man?

Who is that old man in the looking-glass
That absurd old man with the puffy face
And thinning hair, more grey than anything
Whence came that wobbly chin, those hairy ears?

The face in the mirror is supposed to be
Narrow and sharp, with lots of tousled hair
Falling over bright and healthy eyes
Eagerly greeting the morning of life

But this is no matter – lift high the blade
(Rotary now) and with it challenge the dawn!

The Ninja Jade Helm Dinner Roll of Flying Death

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Ninja Jade Helm Dinner Roll of Flying Death

South of Springfield, Missouri, in the little town of Ozark, the hungry traveler will find Lambert’s Café, where the staff throw dinner rolls. There are two other Lambert’s Cafes, one in Sikeston, Missouri and another in Foley, Alabama, where more rolls are thrown.

And why do the waiters and waitresses at Lambert’s throw dinner rolls?

Because throwing green peas just won’t work.

Except for one-year-olds. A one-year-old can fling a mean cloud of peas.

Lambert’s is a highway-side establishment cluttered with the usual garage-sale debris tacked to the walls and which serves good, honest, industrial-strength-cholesterol road food. Lots of cafes do just that, so to stand out Lambert’s bills itself as The Home of the Throwed Roll. The diner who wishes another dinner roll catches the waiter’s eye and holds up a hand. The waiter then skillfully tosses a roll for the patron to catch. Your ‘umble scrivener has dined at Lambert’s. He caught his second dinner roll (hey, the first one was a bad pitch, okay?) without bodily harm, and can testify that it’s all good, low-prole merriment.

Naturally, Lambert’s is being sued by a customer who was brutally mauled by a ninja jade helm dinner roll of flying death.

The complainant alleges a catalogue of head injuries just short of decapitation. Apparently Lambert’s light, fluffy dinner rolls are really stealth gluten toxic death bombs.

Grievously wounded by a poof of flour and air, the diner went all Donald Trumpy hissy-fitty and demanded the cost of a new car instead of dessert. After all, she could not possibly have read the signs about the “throwed” rolls or have seen the aerial celebrations of the in-house baker’s art flying as gracefully through the air as spring butterflies.

One is reminded of the story, some years ago, of the high school girl who sued for a spot on the football team and then sued again because a blocker on the opposing team knocked her down during a game. Her grounds for the second lawsuit were that no one had told her she could get hurt playing football.

But to be taken down by a dinner roll - oh, the humanity.

Thank goodness the weapon wasn’t something heavier and sharper, such as a marshmallow.

Lambert’s might need to place warnings on its dinner rolls: “The Surgeon General of the State of Missouri has determined that food is dangerous to your health.”

Think of a carbohydrate movie treatment: Sergeant Preston and his husky King keep Canada safe for the Empire with just a dog sled and a buttered croissant.

Or Casablanca: “Get away from that ‘phone! I was willing to fling an English muffin at Captain Reynaud and I’m willing to fling an English muffin at you!”

Hunters will have to pass day-long bread safety courses before they can legally take to the woods with a biscuit.

The United States Senate, aka The Marx Brothers and Sisters, will hold hearings on the racism of flinging dinner rolls made of white flour.

Many businesses do not lend themselves to the concept of flinging. Auto parts come to mind: “Hey, Joe, here’s your new exhaust manifold…catch!”

Or children’s health clinics: “Okay, kids, who wants to play dodge-the-flu-shots?”

Many people take up hobbies that feature some element of danger: skydiving, mountain climbing, skiing, motorcycling, and beating Vladimir Putin at chess come to mind. But no one would have thought of the lurking menace (cue the Jaws shark music), the raw, savage, blood-crazed, edge-of-your-seat terror in asking the waitress for another dinner roll.

-30-

It Begins With an Unreferenced Pronoun - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

It Begins With an Unreferenced Pronoun

That which is not winding down is gearing up
Then said to be however under way
Exciting year anticipates even better
Rekindling old friendships short enjoyable
Forward to the high school cafeteria
Another great please plan to join and look
Begin another year preparing it
To seeing you has convocation it
Committed to excellence each of you
That which is not gearing down is winding up

A U-Haul Box - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


A U-Haul Box

A cardboard U-Haul box is a time machine
Which stores the years in careless unity
A lonely chessman lost and wandering
Along the childhood lanes of Candyland
Next to a napkin from the senior prom
Some keys that don’t seem to fit anything
And an unlabeled videocassette
Of a cousin’s wedding in ‘89
Old pens, old plates, old dreams, old high-school jeans:
A cardboard U-Haul Box is a time machine

Lions and Dentists and Trumps, Oh, My!

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Lions and Dentists and Trumps, Oh, My!

The world remains outraged over the death of Trevor the Hairpiece. Trevor, beloved of everyone in the U.S.A., was slaughtered by a dentist from Zimbabwe who hired two local guides to help him in his search for a prize hairpiece to kill, kill, kill.

The alleged hair murderer is Dr. James Mbiriri, an orthodontist from Harare. Dr. Mbiriri is unavailable for comment, and his office is closed until further notice.

Reports from Iowa indicate that the guides, Megyn and Roger, lured Trevor the Hairpiece from Donald Trump’s head by bribing a disgruntled lone wolf rogue stylist taking secret orders from Chewbacca the Wookie through a secret radio transceiver in the basement of the Vatican barber shop. Once Mortimer was outside the otherwise empty crawlspace, Dr. Mbiriri cruelly dispatched the poor hairpiece with the little scissors of his Swiss Army Knife despite Trevor’s tearful rendition of the title song from Hair.

Trevor the Hairpiece died a slow, agonizing death, sort of like veterans waiting for the government to do right by them.

School children all over the world are crayoning tearstained pictures of their hero and inspiration, Saint Trevor the Hairpiece. Their parents are lining up outside stores to buy Trevor the Hairpiece backpacks and Trevor the Hairpiece pencils and crayons for the new school year.

In Paris the obedient sort of people who wear Che Guano tees are chanting “Je suis Trevor the Hairpiece!”

The Cackling Woman Cookery Show on The Gourmand Channel has gone dark in mourning, and its angel-hair spaghetti is being flown at half-mast for thirty minutes or until the rinse-and-set is complete.

In response to the hairpiece crisis the State of Texas has directed all appraisal districts to raise property taxes again.

Dr. Mbiriri’s selfie of himself and the trophy hairpiece has gone as viral as pouring buckets of ice water over secret Jade Helm ninjas skulking in the dark corridors of an abandoned Wal-Mart atop Bald Mountain.

Protestors have blockaded the Swiss embassy in Harare and are tying stuffed toy Trevors to the fence in that all-purpose response to anything, a makeshift shrine, which is of course a contradiction. When a reporter for the ZBC asked a demonstrator if she could define the term makeshift the demonstrator filed charges of insensitivity against ZBC. “We’re outraged that Switzerland promotes violence to free-range hairpieces all over the world through its obscene manufacture of itty-bitty pocket knives with ittier-bittier scissors, and the ZBC are interrupting my script with an appeal to rationality!” she shrieked.

According to Poncy Tworbst, BA, MA, Certified Grief Counselor, and Ordained Holistic Aromatherapist, consultant to The Times of Zimbabwe, “This is another example of a privileged supremacist hirsutest imposing his tonsorial appropriation occupation syncopation centrist views on a primitive culture, Iowa, through his psychologically dubious quest for trophy follicles.”

The Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe has called for hearings, ‘net mobs have called for the extradition of a Zimbabwean citizen to the U.S.A. based on ‘net gossip, and the Minister of Defence has called for every commander to confiscate all scissored pocket knives from Zimbabwean soldiers and airmen.

In his morning minute Tim Brocaw said “I, I, I, me, me, me was once among hairpieces when I, I, I was a barefoot all-American lad in West Dakota. I am not a bad hairdo, but I, I, I am honored to have lived among them, and I, I, I am so special and aw-shucks cute.”

The Church of Elvis is re-naming itself The Church of Trevor the Hairpiece, and new streets will be named for Trevor. Every morning all really sensitive Zimbabweans will pledge allegiance to Trevor-ness, and statues of so-last-week Zimbabwean heroes will be pulled down and replaced with memorials to Trevor the Great. There will be Trevor the Hairpiece Editions of the Bible with commentaries by Trevor the Hairpiece in the margins. The peoples of the world will unite in perpetual adoration of Trevor the Hairpiece, and will forswear all food because rainbows, sunshine, and gluten-free air are all humanity needs for nutrition and for holistic dental care.

The relics of Saint Trevor will be enshrined in St. Ambrose’s Cathedral in Iowa City. A basilica will be built over the site of his martyrdom, and will be consecrated by Rosie O’Donnell with a Sacred Liturgical Twerking of the Salisbury Rite of Rebuke Against the Trumpness.

All hairpieces everywhere will be allowed to roam wild and free in their natural habitat, and will not be murdered by greedy humans looking for a hair-raising thrill.

Justice for Trevor the Hairpiece! The ‘Net Mob demands it!

And justice for murdered children? Still no word on that.

-30-

English and Celtic Poets - a Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


English and Celtic Poets

A Sassenach assembles words and lines
In order, disciplined, like hammer-falls
Upon reluctant steel in armories
The beat and off-beat in formation set

A Celt sings challenges carelessly into the eagle-skies
To soar among the storms in sorrow and in joy
Laughing among full cups of heathery vowels
Claidheamh-mor swinging against blank verse in English helmets

An Englishman sends words to fight and work
A Celt persuades wild words to fight and dream

Secret Stuff the Presidential Candidates Will Not Say

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Secret Stuff the Presidential Candidates Will Not Say

Governor Perry – “Every American should be free to conceal-carry a carton of Blue Bell in church or in a cinema.”

Senator Sanders – “Free love! Free Blue Bell for the masses! In Commie-Red flavors! Us old hippies rock.”

Donald “The Hair” Trump – “All the problems in America are caused by illegal Ben and Jerry’s ice cream swarming across our sacred borders! And Governor Perry looks professional in his new eyeglasses. And, okay, let the veterans have some Blue Bell. And the little cracker.”

Governor O’Malley – “Sure, faith ‘n’ begorrah, just what American needs, meself, another faux Irishperson who wouldn’t know Guinness from Pim’s Ale. Like, sure, I was in an Irish band, sure, only not in Ireland, sure. When I’m elected Taioseach the ice cream will be Green Bell, not Blue Bell, sure. But all ice cream matters! Wait…maybe not…”

Governor Christie – “We’re gonna make Blue Bell an offer it can’t refuse. Otherwise, I gotta bridge with Blue Bell’s name on it. But please tell me more; I want to listen to different points of view.”

Senator Webb – “Blue Bell and the Marines – Semper Fi all the way!”

Governor / Reverend Huckabee - “I’m a-pickin’ and I’m a-grinnin’ with my hillbilly band and my Blue Bell.”

Governor Thompson – “Blue Bell is on strike. I don’t like that.”

Senator Cruz – “Okay, I don’t know if I’m Catholic, Baptist, Cuban, American, or Canadian, but I know I’m a Blue Bell. Or whatever Daddy says this week.”

Senator Paul – “Me too.”

Senator / Secretary Clinton – “Blue Bell!? Ben and Jerry’s!? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!?!?!?!?!?”

Senator Rubio – “You know, as a people of faith we can come together over Blue Bell, Hagen-Daz, or Ben and Jerry’s, because, really, it’s all pretty much the same. Just as long as we all like ice-cream.”

Governor Jindal – “I like the alligator-flavored Blue Bell.”

Shawna Sterling – “No GMOs in Blue Bell!”

Senator Rubio – “Blue Bell in Margaritaville!”

Governor Bush – “Open borders for Blue Bell!”

Senator Graham – “Blue Bell, y’all.”

Carly Fiorina – “In my spreadsheets Blue Bell adds up. Most of the time.”

Dr. Carson – “I prescribe Blue Bell for all my patients.”

Governor Kasich – “If you like your Blue Bell, you can keep your Blue Bell. Maybe. Kinda. Sorta.”

Y’know, we don’t have any Blue Bell ice cream in this country just now but we sure have a stockyard full of mooing presidential candidates. Things’ll be better when Blue Bell is back.

-30-

A New Shirt - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A New Shirt

Shirts are nice. They cover your funniness
Almost no one looks good without a shirt
Especially when you’re old and parts don’t fit
Quite like they did (listen to your looking-glass)
A store-new shirt is one of life’s little joys
You pull away the plastic clips and floof
The fabric out among its new-shirt smell
And praise yourself for your excellent taste
The cuffs and collar fold exactly right
And you look good today in your new shirt

The Death of Mortimer the Tomato

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Death of Mortimer the Tomato

The world remains outraged over the death of Mortimer the Tomato. Mortimer, beloved of everyone in England’s fens country, was slaughtered by an American vegan who hired two local guides to help him in his search for a prize tomato to kill, kill, kill.

The alleged murderer is Neville (Rockin’ Nev) Thistletwit, an inspirational singer-songwriter from New Orleans. Rockin’ Nev is unavailable for comment, and his former space on Jackson Square is currently occupied by Madame Zumba Sees All Knows All Astrologer to the Stars.

Reports from Peterborough indicate that the guides, Bert and Alf, lured Mortimer the Tomato from his sheltered bin by paying off a greengrocer with two pounds and ten pence. Once Mortimer was outside the shop, Rockin’ Nev cruelly dispatched the poor veggie (yes, yes, technically a tomato is a berry) with his Swiss Army Knife despite Mortimer’s erudite existential arguments about the circle of vegetative art.

Mortimer the Tomato died a slow, agonizing death, sort of like television network news.

School children all over the world are crayoning tearstained pictures of their hero and inspiration, Saint Mortimer the Martyred Tomato.

In Paris the sort of people who wear Che Guano tees are chanting “Je suis Mortimer the Tomato!”

The Cackling Woman Cookery Show on The Gourmand Channel has gone dark in mourning, and its quiches are being flown at half-mast for thirty minutes or until the crust is a delicious flakey brown.

In response to the tomato crisis the State of Texas directed all appraisal districts to raise property taxes again.

Rockin’ Nev’s selfie of himself and his lunch has gone as viral as junior high hallway gossip.

Protestors have blocked the Swiss embassy in London and are tying stuffed toy Mortimers to the fence in that all-purpose response to anything, a makeshift shrine, which is of course a contradiction. When one reporter asked a demonstrator if she could define the term shrine she filed charges of insensitivity against him. “We’re outraged that Switzerland promotes violence all over the world through its obscene manufacture of itty-bitty pocket knives, and you are interrupting my script with an appeal to rationality!” she shrieked.

According to Poncy Tworbst, BA, MA, Certified Grief Counselor, and Ordained Holistic Aromatherapist, consultant to Ferret News, “This is another example of a privileged supremacist vegan imposing his horticultural appropriation occupation syncopation vegicentrist views on a poor part of the world through his psychologically dubious quest for a trophy lunch.”

The Speaker of the House of Merovingians has called for hearings, ‘net mobs have called for the extradition of an American citizen based on ‘net gossip, and the Secretary of Defense has called for every commander to confiscate all provocative pocket knives from American sailors and soldiers.

That’s how we Americans roll – in every crisis we call for stuff.

In his morning minute Tim Brocaw said “I, I, I, me, me, me was once among tomatoes when I, I, I was a barefoot all-American lad in West Dakota and I, I, I am so special and aw-shucks cute.”

The Church of Elvis is re-naming itself The Church of Mortimer Tomato, and new streets will be named for Mortimer. Every morning all really sensitive Americans will pledge allegiance to Mortimer-ness, and statues of so-last-week American heroes will be pulled down and replaced with memorials to Mortimer the Great. There will be Mortimer the Tomato Editions of the Bible with commentaries by Mortimer the Tomato in the margins. The peoples of the world will unite in perpetual adoration of Mortimer the Tomato, and will forswear all food because rainbows, sunshine, and gluten-free air are all we really need for nutrition.

The relics of Saint Mortimer will be enshrined in Peterborough Cathedral. A basilica will be built over the site of his martyrdom, and will be consecrated by Kim Lohan with a sacred twerking.

All tomatoes everywhere will be allowed to roam wild and free in their natural habitat, and will not be murdered by filthy humans looking for an ego-boosting salad.

Justice for Mortimer the Tomato! The ‘Net Mob demands it!

And justice for murdered children? Nahhh.

-30-

Heat Stress

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Heat Stress

Now summer is a song without any words
Though midday silence in the dancing heat
Is music enough in this stasis time
When nothing moves across the face of noon
Not even an errant breeze to whisper hope
In the sun-blown desolation of July
Thus silence descants restless rests among
Notes fallen from a hymnal that was lost
Among the weeds and dust where once were dreams
But summer is a song without any words

Heat Inversion

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Heat Inversion

Summer collapses in upon itself
Inversions of thought wandering in the heat
Beaten into confusion’s minorpiece
As the planet orbits, wobbles, and spins
Like Icarus saucily taunting the sun
With importunities and insolence
Until a solar roar of outrage sends
Frail featherings of imagination
Falling into dizzying nothingness as
Summer collapses in upon itself

Back-to-School Shopping

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Back-to-School Shopping

Electronics and ear-buds on display
New jeans and tees, and the most-happening shoes
Tennis rackets and shorts for every day
Maybe even academic tattoos
Jewelry, sunglasses, feathers for one’s hair
Che Guano’s mug shot on a size small shirt
Cool Mickey ‘n’ Minnie themed underwear
A Class Of XX nose ring (that’s gotta hurt!

And that’s the latest faculty look

But no one ever dreams of buying a book

Dresscrossing - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Dresscrossing

When asked if s/he were a transvestite
S/he replied, “Oh, no, that’s not right;
I’m English, and so a transwaistcoatite.”

Fete de la Raison

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Fete de la Raison

Personhood is the measure of a Lamborghini
Along with self-identification
The authentic voice of the marginalized
Because science can now work wonders these days
Only not with your crackers and grape juice
If you are told the sun rises in the west
Follow the sensitive conversation
Body parts. Who will buy my body parts
Freshly sexed-up pancreas for sale
Stuff is now the measure of personhood

A Frivolous Reflection on Power Cords

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Frivolous Reflection on Power Cords

Electrical cords are marvelous things
They slither voltaically without wings
To drag resistant ohms out of the walls
Then digest them along to light the halls
Make radios talk and tellys light up
And heat the coffee for a coffee cup
And make refrigerators thermodyme
AC in rhythmic Isaac Newton time
Lights all alight and a doorbell that rings:
Electrical cords are marvelous things

Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, and Donald Trump

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Politics According to Clue™

Even more than Wheel of 60 Minutes Fortune and Flip the Dancing Stars off this Island, the USA’s most popular and longest-running unreality show is politics. Back-to-school shopping begins in June, and football in August, but electioneering never ends. A presidential election is in itself little more than a brief pause between presidential election campaigns.

Baseball? Hot dogs? Apple strudel? Nope. What defines The Ye Olde Folksy New England Republic is a catalogue of people asking other people for money so that the first set of people can make more video ads.

This season is unusually loopy, lending itself to a new board game to help the players sort out politics, policy, and politics foreign and domestic. As a service to America, the auctor presents to a confused electorate (not that many of them ever vote anyway) a new board game, Campaign Clue™. Each game set contains:

10 character cards

President Obama
Donald Trump
Senator McCain
El Chapo
Vladimir Putin
Bernie Sanders
Senator Clinton
Edward Snowden
Hillary Clinton
Kim Jong Un


10 location cards

The White House Rose Garden
The Spratly Islands
St. Petersburg (Russia or Florida)
A Bridge in New Jersey
A Blue Bell factory
The dumpsters behind the Kremlin
The secret Jade Helm dungeons of doom beneath an abandoned Wal-Mart
A truck stopped for a traffic light in Calais
The Socorro Desert
A dimly lit Tim Horton’s down the street from the Toronto city hall



10 plastic weapons tokens

A pinata
Silly String
A stern editorial in The New York Times
A Confederate flag
A supercilious sneer
An indictment
Gender reassignment surgery
A Greek promissory note
A New Jersey Department of Transportation Traffic Cone
The Cosmic Hairpiece of Clinging Death


Each player takes a divvy of character cards, location cards, and plastic weapons tokens, dumps them into a foam cup from Captain Queeg’s, shakes them up, and pours them out in a meaningless pile. The players then talk about how much they miss Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, the Professor, Ginger, Mary Ann, and the rest of the old gang.

-30-

The Joyful Mysteries - Meditations for a Young Man

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com




The Joyful Mysteries -
Meditations for a Young Man

I. The Annunciation

When Romans ruled, tetrarchs obeyed, the nights
Were given over to wonderings and dreams
An angel whispered to a girl “Fear not”
She made her choice, and history turned away
From failing, flailing, falling into mists
And looked again upon the morning sun
Beneath whose light the Jordan flowed, and days
Were given over to waiting and to work
For carpenters and fishermen who knew
Little of Rome, but much of suffering

II. The Visitation

In loving service to humanity
A girl, a woman now, another choice -
To leave her home to help, to love, to work
Her sweet Magnificat a hymn to us
A song of sweeping floors and making beds
And bringing in the goats for milking time
And laughter to the home of Elizabeth
A leap for joy expressed through busy hands
For maidens and mothers (and even men!) who knew
Little of Rome, but much of work and love

III. The Nativity

Now in reluctant service to the state
To render unto Caesar obedience
A little family once again leaves home
Following orders, not a star, and yet
There is a star. What is it telling them?
Suddenly – no thoughts for Caesars or stars
But only for a Child in exile born
Among the poor and humble of the earth
There to a weary young mother who knew
Too much of Rome, too much of doing without

IV. The Presentation

Now happily, in service to the Law
A going up, up to Jerusalem
A joyful journey to present the Child
Unto the Lord, and there two prophets spoke:
In holy Anna’s fasting, prayers, and words
And Simeon’s rejoicing “Nunc dimittis”
Of risings, fallings, swords, deliverance
The former world passing into the new
And for His Mother at the temple gate
No thought of Rome – but only of Her Son

V. Finding the Lord in the Temple

When Romans ruled, tetrarchs obeyed; the young
In faith and hope gave all their dreams to God
And listened for angelic whisperings
Not only in the night, but in their hearts
And Jesus grew to hear, to know, to teach
To search the hearts of young and old and find
Within them there the heartbeat of Himself
Our Lady kept these things within Her heart -
And, finally, even Romans kept them too

And so it was
And so it is
For you

Cigar Boxes

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


History Lessons on a Cigar Box

Mark Antony preens in his Class-A best
Cleopatra is somewhat underdressed
The servant girl is not at all impressed



Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


A Child’s First Safety-Deposit Box

A dime-store pocket watch that doesn’t run
A tiny magnifier for aiming the sun
A bit of chalk, glass marbles, crayon stubs
A pencil or two worn down to the nubs
A pair of dice gained in a school-yard trade
A cheap pocket knife with a broken blade
A pocket calendar from just last year
A bottle-opener that says “JAX BEER”
A shotgun hull, and little toy cars -
A box is for treasures, not Dad’s cigars!

Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Field Medical Service School

Shivering in the rain, up in the hills
Of Sunny Southern California
Kerosene cookers and their gust-blown smoke
Squid-wet Corpsmen in flying wet slickers
Mess kits held out to sullen, cursing cooks
Slam-glopping glops of sausages and eggs
Cold coffee in aluminum canteen cups
No cover, no shelter for floating food
Or for sergeants bellowing in the dark –
And laughing through it all, for we were young

Mad Dogs and Mourning Doves

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


Mad Dogs and Mourning Doves
go out in the Midday Sun

When nearly noon the old lawnmower is stilled
The unexpected silence is a pause
While an unseen conductor turns a page:
Morning cicadas yield the program to
The responsorial midday mourning doves
Who descant songs across the lonely fields
Whence midday heat has driven all but them
Exchanging love-notes through the drowsy hours
All unaware that when October comes
They’ll have to pack away their amphibrachs