June 9: "A Rake's Progress," Puzzle Pieces, "Morning Rain"

A fall meditation ala Billy Collins . . . 

A Rake's Progress

by: Billy Collins

An autumn afternoon,

the neighbor's boy at work,

a pile of red and yellow

leaves growing even higher.

This poem reminds me of William Carlos Williams' red wheelbarrow and white chickens.  So simple and beautiful.  Of course, one of Williams' most famous quotes is this:  "No ideas but in things."  He found the everyday almost sacred, immortalizing it in his work.  Collin does the same in today's poem, making something ordinary into something wondrous.

Took my puppy for a walk this evening.  On our route, we came across the box for a 1000-piece puzzle.  It was flattened, and the puzzle pieces littered the road for a good half mile.  The image, as far as I could tell from the wrecked box, was a pile of fruits on a table.

My puppy went a little crazy over the pieces, sniffing and licking at them like they were actual slices of apples and oranges and watermelon.  I actually had to pull her along to keep her from eating them.

There was something incredibly beautiful about walking through that puzzle mine field.  I found myself avoiding stepping on the pieces, as if I would get juice and pulp all over my sneakers if I did.

These are the things that Saint Marty had ideas about today.

Morning Rain

by: Martin Achatz

I hear it between

awake and asleep--

tap tap . . . taptaptap--

like woodpeckers

feasting on the sweet

gums of dawn.