! ! ! ! ! ! No Regrets Journal
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Summer and Words ! 2015 Issue 14
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No Regrets, a journal of poetry, prose and images about the twists and turns in the search for love, meaning and community. Clayton Medeiros, Editor, Poet, Photographer, claymedeiros@aol.com Neil McKay (Johnny Trash), Webmaster. Submissions are by invitation of the Editor. Epublishing site with all issues of No Regrets Journal http://issuu.com/claymedeiros/docs Facebook page with No Regrets Journal issues, haikus, poems and photographs http://www.facebook.com/NoRegretsJournal
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Sleep and Rain
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There is a sleep that comes in quiet certitude across green hills, of dew steeped grass. Wet foot prints in the hall of the cottage just before stairs rise up to the bedrooms.
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Rain spatters the windows, a sudden gust of wind prepares for the story soon to be told, maybe a train running through the dark in a misty green valley.
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Children’s memories not yet ready for bed where stories can turn to dreams, unfamiliar places, families, not theirs, like those people seen only at the holidays.
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The storm told the poet to take down the words, put them in a book about children, not yet ready for bed, on a night of wind, rain and spattered windows.
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Rain Speak
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She speaks only to the rain in these clockless days among barely seen clouded foothills she speaks only to the rain, in her mother’s voice, lost now, yet, still here in her words, passed mother to daughter in this cottage, now become a year round place, leaving behind the nearby city where there’s little time to speak to the rain slanting toward the porch and the screen door where she stands with her quiet voice barely heard among the flows of water from the roof, the gutter, the downspouts, into the summer garden.
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Moon
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the sun makes its way hints at morning in spite of stars and planets afloat in the dark blue velvet sky doorways collapse into shadows feeble street lights glimmer on the moon cobbled street
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Neighborhood Watch
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Of many creatures keeping an eye on our neighborhood, stellar jays had early morning duty. They alerted us all with enthusiastic, no holds barred calls from perches on dark wires that run down the alley behind our South Hill home. In charge of late afternoon, the crows, in their shiny black finery, cawed and called enthusiastically at every intrusion.
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Hawk in the Neighborhood
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A hawk came to the neighborhood. The mulch was there first, piled right up to the edge of the deck, built out of indestructible material
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destined to be around for aliens who find the earth, climate ravaged, a unique mix of drought and drowning. But, back to the deck, where mulch
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came right up to the very edge, shadowed cave like holes appeared. It was unclear who made them; it was too soon for extraterrestrials.
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In the garden, for the first time in years, under the forsythia and rugosa roses, there were small, brown, quick rabbits. A hawk came to the neighborhood.
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Fellow Reader ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
the insect’s quick legs cross the page one letter at a time each letter a self contained history of alphabetic creation the linguistic narrative of shapes we know and others lost to use hidden away in unopened books ever hopeful of resurrection in a meaningful word or two
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Evening Walk
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The brown dog and I Walk around the lake Geese honk Smooth water reflects The quiet trees
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The evening sunlight slants Through the leaves Bright Venus appears In the deep shadowed sky It is time to go home
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Birds birds flew close today quick wings flash of yellow and red, a good day to soar, observe the world with gliding eyes.
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Do Gods Take Vacations Summer vacation begins as the high weed eater whine punctures an afternoon breeze, a noisy antithesis to tinted blue horizon to horizon; motorboats scurry across the bay, an octave below the weed eater; white sails offer salient wind filled prayers, both periodically overwhelmed by the throbbing base of airplanes in their slow ascent from the airport. Perhaps the gods too vacation while celestial minions clean up Mount Olympus.
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Dark Outside afternoon light welcomes approaching dusk ready to leave this particular day coming hours offer a different look at light and shadow a different sense of time and place a different view of who we might be whispered words in the air said don’t get too close to the the darkness when it comes
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vines over the edge of the gutter climb window frames set in weathered siding years ago relentless sunshine took the farmhouse paint a slow surrender in a field that once grew daffodils and tulips abandoned now to a cacophony of grasses brush scrubby trees no echoes in the empty rooms !
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Farm House
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Aunt Fran’s House
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From the front walk at fifteen Bedford Avenue, I could see Cape Cod houses, just like ours, on each side of the simple, black macadam road, spaced equally among segmented gray side walks, marked here and there by hop scotch squares, quietly waiting for school to end. Milk and cookies at the kitchen table with friends who knew my Aunt Fran almost always had fresh baked ! ! chocolate chip cookies ready after school.
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Before dinner, there were balls to be tossed, tag to be played, hiding places to be found that no blind folded kid leaning against a tree would ever find. There were pies for every season, spring strawberry rhubarb, summer peaches, fall apples Gravensteins, worth it for the name alone, accompanied by extra sharp, pure white Vermont cheddar cheese, a passion learned from Uncle Eddie.
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He diligently dug out a basement from the three foot crawl space with its cement floor brought into submission, one piece at a time, by sledge hammer, shovel and wheel barrow, Soon, there were floor to ceiling shelves by the wall, each capturing summer in pints and quarts of canned fruits, preserves, pickles and green beans.
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Wooden Bowl I have a wooden bowl, carved by some New Englander a long time ago, you can see the makers chisel marks, a sense of purpose in the form that accompanied it to an auction in rural Vermont where Aunt Fran bid on it. Aunt Fran and Uncle Eddie often took me along on weekend excursions in the old four door black Buick that cruised along two lane New England roads leading to big white clap board houses, with wraparound porches, barns filled to overflowing with one or more estates where they gave you time to look things over before the auctioneer kicked off the sale with a “What am I bid for.� Aunt Fran had a great eye for form and bargains, teaching me how to tell the old cut glass pieces and look for English stone ware and Limoges china marks on the back of plates.The wooden bowl sat in a prominent place on the fireplace mantel. When Fran died it came to me. It has held fresh fruit in the kitchen, dried rose petals from spent bouquets. I like to see it each morning as part of getting the day started on a good note.
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Movies Saturdays, I went to the movies, double features, cartoons, candy bars, rectangular boxes of popcorn, perfect for flattened tosses across the camera's flickering light where cowboys, soldiers and super heroes taught lessons about life, death, liberty, and, once in awhile, kissing just before the hero disappeared into the sunset after the evil forces of the wild west, World War II or outer space were duly extinguished to raucous cheers.