The desire to bend

The straight dreams
of spiraling.  Simple.
Inevitable.  Necessary.
More than even
the center needs
to embrace water
& honey, intention
& cloud. Drop
your favorite word
into the center
of a pond & see
how time bends
to the gracious
how next the taste
of raspberries
in particular
delights.

What's the demarcation between abstract & figurative?

Figuratively speaking, of course.  You might as well ask, "What's the difference between roasted carrots & carrot pate'?" Or an epic & a haiku?   I recall, I've never had carrot pate'.  Epics and haiku -- plenty of.  Though I never tire of haiku -- in all forms.

Flowers have no respect for fences

and that's not taking into account, wildflowers.  But why should they.  Think of paper as a fence. Now grasp a pen.  You get the point.  Think of a knifepoint as a fence.  Consider this as the knife slices an eggplant.  By the way what's the point of most questions?

Emanate

as in light
as in words
as in scent
of lemon
lime
and iris
emanate
emit
exude
radiate

Here's how I read the traffic sign:

stop to take a picture.  Who can resist poppies & Angel's trumpets.  Brugmansia, even the word is lush.  Who can resist pendulous flowers with no spine with no fruit.  Speaking of fruit, this season's strawberries (so far) are so near and so luscious.  Yield to them as you yielded to pen & paper this morning.

Yes, Alice, those are clouds in the pond

and trees, growing out of the sky.  Complete with lily pads & lotus blooming.  White like those clouds.  Cauliflower white.  Cauliflower is a most amazing word; how the mouth invites you to pronounce.  What else invites you to pronounce?  Dishes, for food; paper for words.  But of course.
Enjoy the next landscape you encounter upside down.  Akimbo.

So much can be traced back to a little red wheelbarrow

and physics of the makeshift.  Like memory, fading.  A tad worn.  But a love of dirt, intact.  A line of poetry here or there; the tongue tastes skinny carrots pulled from New Jersey soil.

An egg for breakfast

Affectionately nicknamed, fried-egg poppy.  Stridently cheerful.  Downright optimistic.  One bloom is an entire garden.  Paper skin -- perfect for a petite poem.  Written, of course, in yellow ink.

Right around Mother's Day

Puya!  She blooms once a year right around Mother's Day at Ruth Bancroft Gardens (& elsewhere). Terrestrial, otherworldly & undeniably gorgeous.  Did I mention huge.  Food for the eyes.  Lest we forget, beauty is a protein.  Build on it.  Every blue/green waxy petal is a haiku.

Riderless

and yet not abandoned.  Resting along the ridge of the ocean.  Slowing the pace for sure -- on a tennis ball.  Once I wrote a poem about a painting of a riderless bike propped again a tulip field.  I believe it was raining.  Raining in paintings is always a graceful mystery.  Which foods are graceful mysteries?Asparagus & raspberries come to mind.

Centrifugal force

and the pull to nature.  A spiral in the making.  In the intention.  Forests in the seas. Interconnected and not letting go.  I'm thinking of kelp.  But not for breakfast.  I'm thinking of kelp & a line for a poem.  Begin as I usually do -- with breakfast.  And if there be a line, it will (as most do) curve.

Upon reflection

some reflections warble, some twist & coil.  Is it the thing growing, the thing closer to death, or simply, it is water's magic & mayhem?  Consider this: without water, cooking is limited.  Tea, impossible.  Without reflection, poems can be scant & sketchy.  There you have it on a May day rather early in the month.