Category: Home and Garden

DREYS WITHOUT LICHEN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

stack neatly three cords of stove wood
for kitchen heating (ache, diddly ache)
with no idea how much they’ll need for winter

learn to use a variable-speed screwdriver,
far from expertly, while hanging drywall and doors
(ache, diddly ache)

the plumbers finally show for a day
installing a new boiler just before
the season’s first hard cold snap
and now, having switched, the price
of natural gas price shoots up

still, his Lady of Yard Sale Bargains cites
environmental advantages before
terrifying Halloween trick-or-treaters

and Big Brush Fire No. 2 reduces
three more huge piles to ash and
His Lady of Princess Pink costumes herself as a hippie
to his glowing relief, after the Britney Spears
she’d been threatening

but first, there’s the push to paint the new rooms
in the barn and then lay vinyl in its bathroom
(ache, diddly ache)

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Home Maintenance poems, click here.

IN ADDITION TO SHOVELING SNOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

yes, they lived in a small city where he would

Pull maple seedlings, in spring
Mow the lawn, in summer
Rake the leaves, in autumn
Watch out for falling ice, in winter

they should be celebrating
all this wonder,
opportunity, unacknowledged ritual,

never-wrapped presence
now, light another candle
looking ahead, then, and looking back

Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.

STRAIGHT AND NARROW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

there is much to admire in the unembellished line
when true

Squirrel, who would drive a crooked furrow
in a place where only the best horses
may be proud without sinning

has strayed much as a black bear past midnight
after the spring lambing

* * *

maybe he could have built a dairy herd
milked in a white-walled shed

given the right partner, who would not weep
over bank statements where the only green
would be choked with weeds

his life fenced in, a private Eden
stacked with moldy bales

to slip into rubber boots and shovel
his way back, behind him

* * *

but the scoutmaster was right
Squirrel’s not handy, that way

with wrenches or wiring
or even bent nails, much less

some ballgame or ice skates
no wonder the world was wide open

to the embroidery of his mind
when he had nothing to hold on to

these things shape one’s direction
as much as any opportunity

* * *

today’s American farmer
is a mechanic, electrician, carpenter,
accountant, designer before
the crops and herds matter

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Home Maintenance poems, click here.

WITH BLUE RIBBONS, AND MORE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

to be as prolific as zucchini
as radiant as sunflower
as stubborn as dandelion

turning the doorknob

*   *   *

chance upon friends
some parading with drums
some waiting to dance
some displaying their hybrid autos
some discussing seed varieties

how many from back home
how many at this crossroads

still, we retreat
before the blue sky fades from this year’s harvest

Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.

 

THE SOLACE OF FAMILIAR SPACES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

richness / depth
discovery and a confession we don’t have it right, yet
as for a prescription, we’ll never have it exactly right
if we wanted surprise, we’d go someplace else
so by narrowing the focus, the unexpected twist appears

the asparagus bed or lilacs
my ferns, finally
eight springs at this dwelling

this repetition for greater completeness
complexity as a responsibility
within myself/yourself, too

a spouse rather than a lover alone

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

SUBMIT TO AIR CIRCULATING ALMOST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

one bit of good news

remove debris and deport from one side
for her garden, relocating the piles
in shadowed cesspool, a bonfire, a second

live-trap a dozen spewing squirrels

the as-yet unspecified glade
even without feathered friends
concentrates on the emerging line and shape

a full-time task
regarding implanted hierarchy

“Your generation just doesn’t know
how to have fun” and delight in
thirst

out of the house and about
so you’d admit nearing release
nearing an island

with us, the race to plant bulbs
would always have a late start

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

 

IN THE PASSAGE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

squirrels thrive, after all, largely solo
apart from the mating chase or bout
though they’ll sleep six or seven together yet
repeated delays that autumn allowed little rest

and precluded burying nuts as well as his lady’s
daffodil and iris bulbs et cetera packed away
what they could, hoping they could cobble a nest

*   *   *

or any of the time-bombs
ticking away

among the not-so-everyday matters

*   *   *

you think you’re settled, but you’re not

in any of the different schools of thought

*   *   *

even on a clouded night, the stars incant
“Look where you are, in your small space”

Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.

TOO MANY, TOO MUCH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

two horny squirrels on a tree

I hate cartoon slapstick … as for real actors …

The Dead See Squirrels

who know nothing of the next state nor the globe
their world branches endlessly, effortlessly
and is anything but round

the thistle feeder found in one of our coolers … ah! the safe place!

a girl named Bambi
sounds like a dear
or at least, a little fun

Snow White
lighting
a cigarette

a hummingbird in our herb garden
enough to make me think my sighting over the barn
was a goldfinch, but can they – do they – HOVER?

the fact our yard’s so full of wildlife pleases me
as long as the squirrel population’s held in check
allowing us a bumper crop of pumpkins and
self-seeded sunflowers

with binoculars from the deck, a goldfinch in a sunflower bloom
only to discover two more feasting in the same cluster
when one breaks away, she initially thinks the flower is taking flight

remove the pea vines and the cosmos and cabbage breathe a bit more

with the binoculars again, watching incredibly high gulls
moving east-west
and then, all alone, the unmistakable bald eagle
sailing south, not a single flap
to be lost to a cloud and then sun glare

how is it the eagle soared southward
while the gulls kept going east-west
before and after?
or did the eagle simply Trim Sails somehow
in the upper wind?

May, a profusion of birdsong before sunrise
September, a profusion of cricket fiddling after sunset
incessant, rapturous chorus

September, why so few birds singing?
May, why so little fiddling?

migrating geese sound like a squeaky floor

suet, downy woodpeckers tweet for each bite

in the pile of garbage bags, rustling
a skunk determined to rip it open by the back door
the colors reversed – a black stripe on a white body

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

SOMEWHERE IN THE BLOOD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

the herd, impatient
lumpen clouds, hooves in the mud
demand milking at dawn and sunset

to have a farm somewhere in the background
to pull into its lane, not just grain or hay
but livestock, with sweaty black nostrils
and broad tongues, turning toward the dog

how could anyone leave this
plaintiff, bellowing
in a stream of cheese and butter

he’s forgotten how to drive a tractor
and has never plowed, anyway
his grandpa quit this for the city

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Home Maintenance poems, click here.