On a chance meeting

I met her at a diner, she was sitting at the counter,
A slim, attractive woman, dressed in dark slacks and a sweater.
She was drinking coffee, I said, "Please, would you  pass the sugar?
It's raining cats and dogs outside, just not my kind of weather."
"It beats the snow and ice," she said, "and ducks find it a pleasure."

"I laughed, "You're right, but we both could do without that pleasure."
We rambled on, agreed mass transit would be better,
That traffic was awful, the day couldn't get much wetter.
I liked how she looked at me, music in her laughter,
It was open, unforced, relaxed, and then I wondered;

What if we had met before, when my life was freer?
I put the thought away; a silly thing to ponder.
I stood up, told her goodbye, paid, and left the diner.
Now and then, I think of her, of a pleasant stranger
I spoke to, on a rainy morning I remember.

Hobson's choice:

A choice I'll call
No choice at all.

Random thoughts at breakfast

I have to write this down before it flies
Right out of my head. Damn it! Where's my pen?
How did she phrase it, "Life moves on, love dies?"
Her comment was banal, cliched, but then,
Isn't most of life like that? We repeat
The same mistakes our parents made, and think,
They're so special, unique, world-class, replete
With significance, right up to the brink
Of revelation; they're just new to us;
Uncounted generations felt the same
Frustrations, the same losses and strong lusts;
There are no demons here that we must tame.
I wrote it all down; it's not very well-styled,
But then again, I'm no Oscar Wilde.                                                                                            

On the bounties of fall

                                                "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"
                                                                                         Ode to Autumn
                                                                                              - John Keats

The hazy, hot, and humid days of summer spent,
Of her bright fireworks, only the embers remain;
Intemperate with pride, she thought the rules were made
For others, forgetting each player takes a turn.

The fall will yield a bumper crop from fertile earth,
A fruitful harvest, culled by labor, and with love;
And the fall offers cool mornings and sunny days
In defiance of icy winter's coming blast.

When winter comes again, her frigid onslaught sure,
When blizzards cloak the land, when rivers slow and freeze,
Beneath the suffocating coat of ice and snow,
Shy spring will wait her turn, to green the world again.

The Aurochs rocks

Let's note the Aurochs, now extinct,
Who disappeared before we blinked.
A relative of modern cattle,
He lost in evolution's battle.

Gone, in sixteen twenty-seven,
Now, he lives in bovine heaven.
Geneticists all hope to bring
The Aurochs back for one more fling.

Prologue and epilogue

They mark the start, and then, the end,
Outline the statement that I send.
I brag and boast in the middle,
As I ply my bow, and fiddle.

On quicksilver Time

Is time an item you can buy,
Like cigarettes, or apple pie,
Available, if you have need,
Or is its rationing decreed?

I went to the convenience store
To buy some time. I needed more;
More time, and I might beat the clock.
The clerk said time was out of stock.

When I was young, time passed so slow,
I hardly saw it come and go.
Tomorrow now is on its way;
Can we hold on to yesterday?