The Bees are gone and the butterflies are dying off.
Polar bears climb deadly cliffs to find birds eggs to eat.
Sea birds drown in coats of oil slick on the ocean.
And we sit watching on TV, munching on Doritos
While the news predicts the next tornado’s flash flood
And Canada plus the West Coast are in flames.

What the Hell is wrong with us- have we fried our brains
with TikTok memes and face Book.
Why aren’t we on charter busses aimed
At D.C. and state legislatures to demand
They think of us for once and not the gravy train
They ride collecting re-election funds.

Why do we mindlessly vote straight ticket
Instead of vetting each candidate for
What they’ve done to help the earth.
Then voting out the wastrels.

I know where to rent a bus
Will anybody ride with me.
ljm

the spring mantra arrives with distinctive citified sparkles

a family of ducklings splash, mimicking young children,
shaking, spraying, squeaking, babies bath bathing,
jumping in and out of a fountain pool
of a tall-storied Manhattan apartment building,
the mother-leader attends them well for she recalls
the untimely end of the babies of last year,
lost to wanderlust on York Avenue,
cars and taxis as instruments of mass murdering,
but new spring is the season of new birth

the Cercis Siliquastrum tree trunk (!) oddly sprouts
unusual pink flowers
well before it’s branches grow up into a fully blossoming tree,
a signed spring time ritual, but since it is a/k/a, the Judas Tree,
we wonder if spring hints of Cerci Lannister’s fate betrayed,
in this, her final May dance, oh, which Judas brother/lover
will bring us a winter fin finale

the temperature control dial busted, the variability too wide,
the youngers are skipping the interregnum season,
going direct to elect shorts and T-shirt, while those who no longer bloom in the semi-warm, recall the wet chill of past evenings,
voting to dress defensively, wearing their aging skepticism
aware that all changes are exact crossing line-defined, wrapped in
medium weight coats, concealing embarrassing gloves in pocket,
decorative silk scarfs for non-decorative purposed,
all betting the under/over the spring is here all-in not yet sighted

the streets are busy, the momentary pleasantries
of warm sky and sun push the apartment dwellers out,
a magnetic force pulls us to the outside to exhale, in order to inhale,
guises manufactured excuses appear, a loaf of bread, a latte necessity,
the children desert happily their wintery confinement,
by pushing their own carriages, containing in their stead,
their lilting accented nannies, excited by their version of spring break

Me? toy shopping for this month brings rashers of birthdays,
more May galorey, singing come Dancer and Prancer, Ian and Isabel, Alex and not-a-baby anymore Wendy, and because the weather so pleasant, cautions ignored, the credit card swiped repeatedly, frequently and joyously, xmas reimagined, another May time ritual, rooted in the September month of *******, of staying warm, staving off winter *******, and winter planting for spring harvesting

children score grand-multiplicities for god made in his place
grand parental substitutes, each with two hands each equal,
so both must be filled with maypole ribbon, brightly colored
toy bags, presents wrapped in paper unicorns and all manner of
sporting *****, as we turn 2 and 6, 7 and who ate 8?

all that my eyes did see when we surfed strolled the streets,
vignettes fell like the spring rains, they, now, from daytime banished,
to after-midnight to do their breast feeding of tulips and weeds,
letting little children grow up snuggling in still over-heated rooms,
naked legs kicking off winter blankety snow remnants while dreaming of springing onwards and forward
into the party of life by inhaling nature’s

nature.

~for the inestimable and yet,
so oft underestimated,
Lori Jones McCaffery ~
*"That was beautiful and I lived it with you." ^


tell-me, tell-me,
he whispers so only he/she can hear:

is there anything more,
a simple poet could ask for,
but an admission of someone revealing that
your words,
inculcated, enwrapped, flowered within,
then carried them to you,
and you to them?

to sit beside me, on my unpillowed weathered throne,
and imagine them imagining through eyes that read, shared
your overflowing joyous insights of the outside domain,
your sadness glorious at the end of a summer
where you rediscovered, un~purposed,
a mindfulness,
from the early morning sun beams stinging you alive

that together ***** the air from lungs exhaling,
and this very breathe
is the synapse of an actual consummation,
transmigrating, transmuting, transforming
a kindred soul
to kin

how glorious!
no, there is nothing greater,
but to ask:

my dear,
can you feel, ******* salted tears, Lori,
as I kiss each of your hands for becoming/making/cresting & creating
a bond of us?

can I handle the season of older,
took my~love, and took it down,
till the hymnodist laughed,
do not forget,
she shrieked,
old and gold are symmetrically synchronized,
synced, not sink!

what you want to think, is always,
never what you
true believe,
as long as you breathe,
a miner for hearts of love you are,
start in the capillaries, onto the arteries, and deep into the
pumping machine,
which calls out in indignation,
you human, are mine,
and as long as you mine,
for the cup that-is-not-illusory,
always and eternal, l think not,
for you have already tasted love's holy water,
leaving you, leaving you with an undying thirst,
for more,
the gold apogee on our elliptical trajectory,
where the she~sharing-oxygen once displaced
in a race
to be supplanted,
but that must be won,

when/where  the golden aura supplants
the necessities,
and the liquid gold will
replace, re-p-aces your almost now used up blood,
endlessly re~circulating,
subject to the  the critical cortical critique of
insufficient,
no más, for never enough,

gold and love,
like sync and swim
together  in time,
in rhyme,
how could you not know
this absolute
is a
scientific fact?