Less crabby, but still unsociable ;-)

Green Fortress

by Moni


If there's one thing I love dearly
It's a hidey hole.
Symbolically impenetrable and private.
I can't see you, or maybe I can and I'm spying
But either way, you can't see me.

The highest incarnation of hidey hole
Is under God's great sky
Not plaster, dry wall, or acoustic tile.

A fortress with ants, and birds, and air circulation.
Preferably breathing green walls.
Carpeted with honest, friendly, life-holding filth.

My cherished childhood hole was a long, narrow vestibule.
With a back wall of light blocking, vine-permeated fence
And a front wall of spade shaped leaves and spindly trunks.
The jacket-snatching ceiling began where the leaves began.

More of a crouching hole than a standing hole.
Years of leaf litter on the soft, roly-poly infested floors.
The upstairs neighbors squabbling and gossiping
About kids, and nests, and worm scarcity.

And around Memorial Day, a smiling, teary, enveloping fragrance
Of lavender and white, and memories
And love from the earth and unseen beings.
Loneliness absent in my lilac home.

One bad poem deserves a good.

Blessed Burdens

by Moni

Shoulder this burden so I don't have to.
Pull this cart
Bear this baby
Pick this cotton

Do the work that I could not or would not.
Be this man's best friend
Keep this house
Pick this fruit

And you must like it.
You must want it.
You must smile, and never shirk.
Serve me willingly, have no wants.
Be swallowed and find salvation.

Because, someone must do this work.
And it shan't be me. I don't like it.
So it must be you. So you must like it.
Whether you like it or not.




From Ode Inscribed to WH Channing

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

...The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
'Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.