Come spring!

Come spring, come spring,

Let flowers sing!

Let no more melancholy winter reign,

With its thousand reasons to complain.

No more introspection in the dark

Be rather joyous as the lark!

Burst outside the walls your soul restricting

Let yourself fly on winds uplifting.

A hillside of flowers catches my eye

I hurry toward them on feet light and lithe.

Tiny crocuses shake in the breeze

Delighted to see them I drop to my knees

Translucent petals tremble and sigh

But lift their glowing faces to the sky.

Despite the February frost,

Let not one day of sunshine be lost!

Come spring!

Gas Station Saunter

See the woman walking

light as air–

her wings filling up with the wind,

canvas shopping-bag sails dancing in the sun.

An easy, breezy escape

for 10 minutes,

popping over to the corner gas station

–alone!–

to pick up lemonade ice-tea

for her temporarily bed-bound husband

who had this special request.

She walks along in the sun

smelling the city scent of spice and cement,

free enough to notice such things

without the usual tangled parade of double stroller,

the baby in snuggly

and other kids marching two by two.

She wonders what the chances are

that she’ll get to capture

the poetry of this ordinary moment

when she arrives home

to 80,000 questions

like “Why is blood red?

What is the sun made of?

What do we do before we are born?”

and “Can I have a ‘peeburrer samich’ nooooooow?”

An obnoxious car cuts her off to turn through the crosswalk on her light

–keeping it real–

lest in her pondering she float off into the brilliant blue sky

to alight on the snow-covered mountain tops that beckon in the distance

to this winged creature:

a woman alone for a walk.

Oh, hey, aloha!

I’m outside walking on a January day;

the sidewalks and the sky are matching gray.

I pull my hands into my sleeves,

–the cold wet air is biting me–

but inside there’s a flame no one can see.

I’ve got Maui warmth

hidden in my heart.

The sunshine from Paia

is here to stay, yeah.

Oh, yeah, aloha!

Oh, yeah, aloha!

When you are in Hawaii,

no one asks you why

you’re doing what you’re doing

or you’re wearing what you’re wearing, today.

They say, “Oh, hey, aloha!

Hope you have a great day!

Oh, hey, aloha,

it’s just fine doing things your own way.”

When I was out swimming

with my brothers in the sea

I cut my foot on coral

now the sea’s inside of me.

I’ve got mermaid scars

(perhaps I’ll grow a tail).

The ocean’s salt is in my blood

and bright Maui stars

are ever in my eyes.

So oh, hey, aloha,

hope you’re having a great day

Oh hey aloha,

I’ll be going back to Maui,

someday.