Sad every year about this...

309/365 - Dead Christmas Tree | I am amazed at how many ...
Elegy for Tree


That which are meaningless, or those intoxicating charms
Hand-wrought, Faberge, tribal, precious and trashy

Taking down the ornaments

Children back into xmas box.  Into sweltering, killing cold attic
Where a bat flies the spine of its apex, searching and searching

How the tree ached this year

For a month, holding our smug gems, drinking while dying
Its quiet loss unmourned, a blank space below unfĂȘted sky

Tossed by the road on a heap

Gracious unknown conifer, dripping your forlorn blades
May you burn after the ice, satisfied your season is done

                Burn pointed into sky, aflame 

a little Karma, kitty and kindness

City of Pluck and Backbone


In San Francisco, city of pluck and backbone
I had an apartment above 16th Avenue, light blue
With cheap regal applique and brass numbers
Across from the lean brick face that hid the sun
Where a kitty promenaded the fire escape rail

Years later, working down the Peninsula in Palo Alto
I introduce myself to a new hire, lives in the City
“Oh where?” I ask. “Inner Sunset,” she tells me
“Really, I used to live there. What street?” “16th Ave”
She says. “I was on 16th Avenue!,” I say. She asks,
“What address?”  “1345.” “The blue building, right?
“I’m right across the street!” “You’re in the brick?”
“I once yelled at a woman in the brick building
For letting her cat go out onto the fire escape!"

Big yelling voice, Italian style, out my window
Needless to say, after that interchange, working
With the woman was less inspired.  In fact,
Awkward. I thought her stupid. To her I was rude
She told me it did fall; hurt its backbone.  Years
Later, still limping a bit, I am happy to hear.

I could walk the streets of the City for a year
Searching out irresponsible pet owners, yell
At each of them, yet never see a single one
Again, much less come to work with them
Daily reminder of my public face: Guido
Urban dwelling yeller, Kitty Avenger
Wondering how Karma, how kindness
Come back to one, to all things living
On salaries or fire escapes, until we fall