After the TV broke
and the odd monsoon arrived
I watched rain showers
float items down the street.
Pink plastic cup.
Stripped Barbie doll.
A torn love song.
And my neighbor’s melancholy.
When the rain stopped,
I turned to watch the cholla
swell before my eyes
though that is a trick of imagination.
All the Gold- and Rosefinches
returned to the damp nyjer seed
and jousted for landing
on the feeder’s mesh wall.
A dark-eyed Junco
with white tail feathers
got nicknamed
Tongue Depressor.
Tonight, I will tell my beloved
about an endangered species:
the Yellow Taxi I saw
returning neighbors home
from the holiday made longer
by mandated quarantines
and widely differing political views
constricted by No Shouting rules.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
postscript
For those of you who do not know Close to the Edge is a song by the rock group Yes. Here is a link to a YouTube playing of the song. Wikipedia has an entry on the song as well.
Confession: the poem is not about the song or any of its ascribed meanings, but is in the title because it was an ear-worm while writing this poem.
Umflop 