(I don’t generally write poetry, but this one, which I first drafted in 1992, feels prosy enough to me that I’ll take a chance on going public with it.)
Not the yellow of the flowers, nor their correct botanical names,
but the way they startle in a soothing field of green.
Not the filmy surface of the lake against a porcelain sky
but water itself, the comfort of its nearness and abundance.
Not the descending peaks of pine trees, aligned in perspective,
but the way they beckon North to remembered places.
Not the tallness of the grass nor the shape of its seeded spears,
but how its wind-brushed motion settles the mind.
Not the translucent blue of the damselfly,
but the lucky sight of six threading a common path in the grass.
Not the furry fatness of bumblebees, quivering over daisy eyes,
but relief that they keep doing what they must.
Not the beaded, flourdust white of yarrow,
but the memory of it, topheavy along a childhood road.
© Cheri Register, 2011