What illuminates?

A chickadee’s song, a crow’s call, on the margins of an early summer morning.

A window box full of red and white petunias, and hummingbirds buzzing, sipping on the periphery of a kitchen window – A July or January day, depending, of course, on one’s hemispheric environs.

The gift of a hug around the circumference of a big maple tree’s trunk on a scarlet autumn day –

The hug returned even more brightly illumines.

To see a loved dog on a walk with their dedicated human on a rainy spring day. Depending on how hard the rain, the human might not be smiling, but the pup almost surely is.

A bumblebee alight on the radius of a little yellow lion’s mane –

Bee working their summer afternoon shift.

Rain dancing softly on a roof to Handel’s Water Music.

A good book,

A cat’s contented purr.

Brilliant paintings in the margins of our stories,

All.

A search for one perfect pearl,

Pilfered.

Under the bed? No. Perhaps a jumping spider’s

Prize? No.

Buried like a squirrel’s acorn behind the Gardener’s shed? Also,

No!

Finally found.

Dust bunnied, cobwebbed. Under a ghost vanity long ago forgotten.

Lovingly polished.

Added to a small bowl of smooth, burnished copper.. with one beautiful blood orange,

Sliced.

Beside the bowl.. a summer ripe, juicy plum.

A love note, penned on the palest blue

Parchment –

Also, a little gold box, containing two salted caramel truffles.

A still life painting?

A scene set for a vintage film?

No.

A love potion for two.  A white tie tuxedo.

A flowing red silk gown.

Scent of gardenias, illuminating a poem –

Pleasure at midnight, under whispering pines and oaks.

Orion’s bow, abandoned. A violin, chosen.

A Prague waltz, played.

Ecstasy, reached.

Woman with pen

And lined notebook.

Maybe I’m that woman.

So far, only the lines –

No words. Pen waits for

Movement.

Tree frog, impatient.

Lands in its midst.

He says.. I. I am your story. Me. Me and the trees,

The beetles. The flies. And this paper, once part of

A tree. Maybe a fir, perhaps a pine.

Write us, he says.

Me, the birds, and see the forest for the trees.

Go ahead. Write me.

Write my singing with your words.

Take your words to the forest.

Read them aloud.

Sing them to the firs!

Lions’ manes seek springtime

Sunshine

Tulip forests in

Red, yellow, purple, and pink

Coats shed, packed deep away.

Camellias, red

Maple buds, chartreuse –

Aphrodite appears; love season arrives.

Desires tire of their winter weather timeouts

Red merry widows, pink satin Freudian

Slips

Flushing faces and blue silk swirl

Come waltz a floral fairytale

With me.