Victoria Crawford – Four Poems


 

Garden Colors

New leaves tremble with promise
in the egg shell crystal of air,
silken breeze pearled
with damp umber scents
of lately turned earth in
honeyed early summer.

My shabby rocking chair,
Worn cushions the pale blush
of a child’s ballet slippers,
waits with rose compassion
to cradle me oyster-like.
Iced tea melts into amber
as I join my garden
in opalescent early evening.

Tuxedo cat stalks
an onyx burnished beetle,
her chest snow in the dusk.
The dog, face grizzled,
sprawls contented,
plume tail curled safe
from metronome rockers .

I settle, now home placed,
violet and pumpkin streaks
measuring sunset’s margin.
Close by, the garden transmutes
with day’s advance
into colors I will not name.



Last Walk at Day’s End

Day’s end on Monterey Bay
chill water washes my feet as
packed sand crunches under strides
into ocean’s rim twilight colors.

Watched by pelican formation,
my dogs advance and retreat,
galumphing clowns challenging surf.

Alpha and omega, each stroll,
they live in the canine moment,
happy in our family pack,
unaware of time and sea change.

Tide slaps and sloshes on rocks
reaching out arms to the deeps.
On a ledge above, a cypress
lifts moss green palms in supplication.

Sea lion barks are muted, distant.
They haul their bulks up crescent sand
beyond the stretch of incoming
icebox waves and night.
The dogs cough. I pinch my nose.
Pacific breath puffs sea lions’
dead fish reek.

Sundown pleats into indigo.
Alpha and omega, last sun
flares a neon green wink:
fare you well.



Redwood Labyrinth

Sun spotlights flashes as
coral mushrooms parade
banana slugs glisten
turquoise jays squawk
in filtered light of canopy umbrellas
snaring cobweb clouds
with needled redwood branches.

Around the corner, the narrow
trail skirts a fallen Atlas ,
arms strike out like arrows
for twenty or two thousand years,
now lift no worlds or clouds
on broad shoulders.
Sempervirens’ unchanged centuries.

Dampness trickles down rough bark
in rhythmic pings. Fingerling rivulets
marinate moss squish cushions
for tramping feet.
Slender rills curl and coil
gurgling homeland for
sorcerous salamanders
who haunt fire and water.

Follow enticement trails
around, between, and beyond
the moisture nurse to life
in flora’s realm: emerald needles,
leaves of lime and sage,
lichen of jade and malachite.

Cool air balmy with mist
drifts in scents of pine sharp,
juniper scrunch, fungus mold,
and cedar clean that
coalesces in tangy melange
on the wisping way.

Redwood pillars point
to dozens of worn grooves,
a minotaur’s maze,
a turn in the track,
a bend, a curve
beckons.



Monarch Surveillance

Cross the border, illegal,
No papers grant refuge
to your generations,
silent flyer of choice.

Pursuing necessities,
shelter and sustenance,
children, future, your quest,
you seek, never to find.

Watched, pursued, and counted,
linger, mend together in
this sanctuary city
standing ready to cherish.

Eucalyptus flowers
share winter nectar.
Citizens volunteer
taxes and their prayers.

Travelers don’t tally
your lives, but beg for the
mystical moment you alight
on head or hand, connection.

Butterfly, monarch of sky,
fly with summoning sun
Pacific corridor
across this once free land.

Flee, dead bug still flying,
under milkwood no more
eggs or caterpillar.
Call it habitat loss
for crossing the world’s edges.


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

I believe that beauty is about connections, any kind of connections:  with nature; a response to something seen or heard; a landscape painting with a memory; the silence of snorkeling on a coral reef;  the brave smile of a toddler touching a dog for the first time; or a bright yellow banana slug inching along a fallen log.  The possibilities are infinite.  A moment of perception occurs and a glimpse of beauty caught in the seemingly unrelated.  Unexpected insights reveal the entirety in the part; we have the grace of being able to experience the segment while simultaneously dreaming of the whole.


 

Victoria Crawford is a poet/writer who lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and who has lived in several other countries. She has published in various magazines and newspapers over the years. A key goal is to share the beauty in daily life in different regions of the world, including her hometown in Monterey Bay, California.