Correctly: Coming and Going

On the way home
From the market,
I saw a single Monarch butterfly,
Which can mean only one thing:

Autumn is not far away,
For tis the season of
The great Monarch migration,
To the south;

What a wonderful sight!
Especially as I can’t recall
When last I saw
Such a patterned black/orange beauty,

A fleeting flash of colour,
Fluttering up and down
On the air currents
Of a warm August afternoon;

Fly little winged one,
Fly strongly, fly well,
Carrying my best wishes
On your delicate wings:

One for compassion,
The other for wisdom,
Not one, not two,
Or so I’ve heard;

They come and go
So swiftly
These precious moments,
When I feel so alive,

So connected,
It’s hard to believe
That “I” too
Is so short-lived,
But there it is—impermanence.

Correction: Whirlwind

Zest for life
Exploded abruptly in me tonight;
Not sure of the cause,
But whoa, what a force!

It might have been the weather,
Or the shingles healing progress;
Don’t know how long this will last
Could be gone fast;

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see
How I get so grabbed
By whatever mood or emotion
That barrels through,

One after the other,
And I’m getting caught
On them all;
But at least I can see,

Although I can’t
Seem to do anything about it,
Only watch and learn
What odd twists and turns,

How blinded,
How stuck in it,
How curious,
How disconcerting!

The effect is so strong,
It alters all aspects,
Leads me to doubt,
To ask, 'who is this?

What is this happening now
That seems so real,
So concrete and sure
But breaks up so easily
Whenever the conditions change?'

Corralled: Shut Out, Shut In

Caught up in thinking
And talking
And then just plain lost,
Shaky and fatigued,

The one constant
Being the renovations
That keep coming and coming,
And no end in sight;

Just when I think
It’s finally over
A new round starts up,
Doesn’t this guy ever get fed up?

I bet he does,
But we all
Have to earn
A living somehow;

Nevertheless, how frustrating that just when
The hot weather eased
And I could finally
Go outside,

He’s moved his machine
To the balcony,
So I have to choose
Between relative quiet and fresh air.

I chose the former
And got on with
Some noisy work
I had to do,
In self-defense
Against his insistent brouhaha.