Spokes

A moment of time when its spokes are still.

When I'm silent, what moves within me?

When a tomato is being picked, what is it's center saying to the departing vine?

What does a blue umbrella think of a blue sky?  Or of wind rearranging leaves on the closest tree?

And will the next poem begin with heirloom tomatoes and a blue umbrella?  Wind, caught in time's spokes?

How does a bird see

what I'm seeing?
When she sings, does melody or lyric carry the song?
What meal does that bird imagine so close to the Day of All Souls.

The simple

is tricky.  Is hard.  Is soft.  Reminds you of that dream of petite trees, huge pinecones and poems in pockets. Reminds you of a frozen spinach dip from the 70's.

Blender

Time is a powerful blender.  Almost as powerful as dreaming. Imagines and words come to the foreground or blend into the background.  Much like a soup and the blending of tastes.

The umbrella

dreams of rain while I dream of persimmons.  While I dream of persimmons, snippets of words hang on crystal branches.  Words can submerge, can shatter.  Or words can hang and catch whatever time brings.

The persimmon contemplates color

and that which is contemplated
becomes real. Imagine a plate of colors.  Think palette.  Think palate.
All this, while eating a persimmon.

Continuous

is the old, is the new.  The waning, waxing.  Heirloom tomatoes from the farmers markets are certainly waning.  New growth on the pothos, waxing.  Such greening -- an intimacy like our California hills after the first rain. The living with a continuous thirst for water.