Lines

by Philip C.  Kolin

cotton fields after
harvesting
a cloudless sky

Crows

by Philip C.  Kolin

A cortège of black clouds,
They sweep acrosss
A frightened sky.

Gloom calls them
To a country of corpses--
Fouled air, red flares.

Trees with wild hair
Cannot hide or hush
Nestlings in their
Last taint of breath.

For most fallen
The duration of death
Is swift, a hunter's shot,
a bigger predator's spoil.

Pieces of flesh left behind
On highways or back roads
Waiting for these dark undertakers.

Over each they mutter
A one-syllable requiem
Before ravaging them.

Or carrying off
Pieces of flesh
To their aeries.
The wind goes silent.

Raptor Winds

by Philip C. Kolin

a silky maltese
weighing less than
a pile of fall leaves
runs across

the gated yard,
the freedom of air before
the guile  of winds
in a late season storm

set in; the sky not
sure what color
it will  be
how it wants to be blue

but raptor winds pounce
on the hope of calm
and turn it  biting colors
circling, blowing  leaves

away, scattering them
in harrowing directions,
the yard overtaken
with blood-red and

fearful yellow,
the backdrop for
a red-tail hawk swooping
down to carry off the dog.

The Glory of Gardens

by Philip C. Kolin

Even when winter entombs
fields in stark white,
flags of rye and red clover
parade the victory of color.

In springtime hurrahs come
for the progeny of last year's
ancestors--lace cap hydrangea,
blue sage, heather, and impatiens.

Summer's sun-soaked bounty
is baptized into life with fertile rain--
corn, asparagus, meaty pole beans,
eggplants and tomatoes.

In fall, alfalfa, oats, and cowpeas
flourish under Novembered skies
full of promise for a feast of gathering
at the end of the year.                                   

Prairies

by Philip C.  Kolin

A prairie is flat,
honest

free and open

not hampered
by planting rituals

or fenced in
like a garden's roses.

A prairie celebrates the wind
frolicking with wild rye and clover;

its butterfly flowers follow  the sun
and its  buffalo grass roams at will;

prairie bluestem everywhere
mirrors the cloudless sky.

Imperious sparrows and larks
cannot control

what a prairie harvests
or seed it with weeds.

A prairie grows
from the inside

out. No prickly pines
or glossy holly can root here.

A prairie courts posies
with black eyes

and blue bonnets.
A prairie sings:

Let all the world be lupine.