CHILLY
The sun was such a tease
hanging just below the horizon
like it might decide to not come up this morning.
Regardless of that decision, the trail brightened the longer I walked,
my hands pulled into my sleeves,
my shoes crunching on iced gravel
following coyote tracks that veered off towards back yards
where Charlotte, Sue’s sweet cockapoo, and four chickens live.
They forecast snow today. Without clouds?
Prepare for cold and damp. With these rapidly bluing skies?
That blasted woodpecker annoyingly yaks from atop next door’s tallest willow.
Fat robins pull and pick apart fat worms.
My favorite mourning dove stares me down above the empty feeder,
and North Korea held its largest missile test yet last night.
4/26/17
PLANE DOWN EN ROUTE TO EGYPT
A plane falls into the Mediterranean Sea.
Sharks circle the newsroom thousands of miles distant.
“We have no news yet! Stay tuned for breaking news!”
Sharks circle the wreckage,
about which we have yet to receive news;
around the luggage and the seats
and the stewards’ bright jackets,
the pilots’ electronics –
no longer humming, nor warning of imminent doom.
Sharks circle the debris for body parts,
which, of course, they will not show,
but which they will, of course, intimate, with appropriately soft voices,
“You cannot believe the heartbreaking photos!”
Here are the names and photos of the pilots, the crew,
the manifest, the grieving families,
turning anguished faces from the lenses.
Presidents speak of courage.
Parliaments call for investigation.
Bits and pieces of lives, full or otherwise, float into view,
then sink again into the waves with the plankton.
Still sharks circle.
“Don’t turn that station! We are here for you
with all the breaking news on this international tragedy!
but for now, here is the latest from the Cannes Film Festival,
and George Clooney’s wife’s fabulous rainbow dress!”
rJoHerman 
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