7/52: hello, tree spirit

Hello, tree spirit
I know you are following me,
following me in the woods.

Do you love me more than the others?
You hide treasures along the foot path:
moss on an old log,
three leaves laid just so,
a mushroom blooming like a young woman.

Are these for me? Only for me?
Or do you share your secrets
with whomever happens along?
The old man with the damn dog
that should be on a leash;
the couple running in spandex
with iPods plugged in their ears -
together, alone;
the three college boys smoking weed
as if no one had smoked weed in the woods
before them.

How do they deserve your attention
when I walk so slowly
and I can feel you following me,
just behind my peripheral.

Do you share your secrets with them
when I do not come for days?
Do you share your secrets with them
when I am not clever enough to see
the gifts you have placed in the shadow,
or in the glinter light?

Be faithful to me, tree spirit.
I am but a mortal, with a mortal man's years.
Be faithful to me,
follow me, only me, in the woods,
and I will love you when I am old.

When I am gone, lay your treasures
by my footprints
grown thin with time.

---

Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/hello-tree-spirit

6/52: onions

To caramelize the onions properly

requires a certain state of mind.

One can't be holding on to ancient pain

or the onions, sensing your anger,

burn black and hard.

You must acknowledge the imperfections

of your life, the dreams that will not now

at midlife come true,
and let them go
like a balloon accidentally released
from a child's hand.

You must stir steadily, regularly,
with a wooden spoon on the cast iron pan
feeling the tension ease out
of the longitudinal slices
while the aroma evolves
and fills the kitchen.

Another balloon drifts away carrying with it
worries about next week's meeting,

and another about your daughter's future.

Stir, stir,
there is time for all that later.


audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/onions

5/52: Not of this planet

I am not if this planet,
I feel I must tell you
because today is Tuesday,
and it is raining.

I've heard rumor that you are also
a stranger from afar.
Isn't it odd that we would meet here
of all places,

so far from home.

4/52: Refined

Pour it into a bottle and cork it,

carry it down to the cellar where no one can see it.

In the darkness lay it down,

let the fermentation process eat away
all the sweetness of memory,

until only the refined
blood red bitterness remains.