For Maria Spelleri
Stage-dressed all in pink,
crepe myrtle dances with wind,
scattering petals.
Copyright 2017
T. Allen Culpepper
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Tag Archives: nature
Blooming Stones
Confetti petals
strewn by the rhododendrons
litter the hard stones
in a pattern suggesting
the rocks themselves have blossomed.
Copyright 2017
T. Allen Culpepper
Duck Feet
Duck feet wattle-splat
against the pondside pavement
after morning swim,
reconnecting life-deadened
spirit to nature’s rhythmic pulse.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Possum Portrait
A reluctant subject, anxious of pausing
her foraging for some tasty insects to snack on,
a female Virginia opossum sniffs once
to proof the absence of threat, and then
sits up in the front yard, her ghost-white
face glowing in the tree-filtered lamplight
seeping weakly into the pre-dawn darkness,
the same face that peered from Algonquin woods,
the same black eyes that scientists say
watched dinosaurs live and die, that
saw past the dinosaurs and Algonquins,
past the settlers and builders of cities.
Although her kind have suffered their losses,
to coyotes and dogs, to redneck hunters
with shotguns, to the noisy machines
hurtling with ungodly speed down streets
and highways; the species has survived,
virtually unchanged, and death to her
is only a game that she has often played
and so far won. She might climb a tree
to survey her options, might enjoy
a starlight swim if the opportunity
presents itself, but she will not run away
from death; she will walk, slowly,
at her own pace, taking another
solitary journey, and if death chooses
to follow her, that is the business of death,
not of possums, to whom death is only
a trick of last resort that sometimes
works and sometimes doesn’t.
My particular possum, very much alive
and grown tired of posing, raises
a four-finger wave, idly licks her palm,
and ambles off to finish her scavenging and find
some dark, safe place to sleep the day away.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
An Acknowledgment of Divinity in Near Darkness
A sickle-sliver of moon
hangs as if fixed still
before a star-flecked curtain
of murky midnight blue;
the earth takes in a breath,
its exhalation inspiring
crepe myrtle branches to stretch themselves
and whisper, “Namaste.”
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Jay
Perched in the tree,
he’s a subtle marvel
in his morning coat
of blue and grey,
camouflaged among the leaves
by his likeness to the patches
of sky visible between them;
but reticent only
in resting appearance,
he squawks his displeasure
at the idling cat
he dives to peck:
touché!
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
X Minus Two
My thoughts race to catch the beat
flicked out by the squirrel’s-tail metronome,
but their jousting for priority
proves as indecisive as the the duel
between the two red-breasted robins beak-fencing
on the front walk, fluttering
airborne in a rally of hits.
That the daffodils have risen again,
waving their yellow banners
in the advancing wind-parade of spring
assures me that Nature will marshall all this flux
into some kind of crazy order.
But what of my thoughts, blowing
wildly in the same wind,
swirling over the dull thud
that reminds me of the question
I sat down on the porch with my
mug of coffee to ponder:
How many margaritas are too many?
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
