Some Kind of Sonnet for a Mayfly
for Michael Arcieri
If it be true what learned people say,
The Mayfly lives for but a day.
I’ll not shed even the tiniest tear,
Or wish he’d make it one more year.
Instead I would concentrate on just how grand,
To live without next week’s demand.
And among the simple Mayfly facts is,
He never once has to file his taxes.
Or contemplate the waning moon,
Or anticipate any time but soon.
Never repay but only borrow,
Or check the weather for tomorrow.
It might be luxury, if I may be bold,
To be unconcerned about growing old.
No time for beddy-by, nor alarms to be set,
No time for longing or for regret.
Not to mention that on his day in May,
He might decide to alight or just fly away.
Another thing any Mayfly knows,
He won’t need to shop for winter clothes.
Never wondering while watching the setting sun,
Why living seems over before it’s begun.
The Mayfly is the only who can truly say,
That the Mayfly has so truly had his day.
At eight in the morn his youth would flower,
Old age a twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth hour.
Never needing to strain his brain to remember,
Where he was on the twenty-fourth of September.
Oh Mayfly how strangely fortunate,
Is the lifetime brief and immediate.
Mayfly whose life is so fleetly fleeting,
Might seem so surely worth repeating.
Life Now
It is not so different, really.
There are oaks and wildflowers,
and stones in our garden.
In the house where we sleep,
there is a case of books,
and they are our books.
The sunlight is most
beautiful in the early morning
just before the world gets busy.
There is work to be done
during each of our days, as well.
Work which makes us feel
tired and contented.
There is also water.
Not empty and still,
but thin and silken over
and amidst the big rocks.
All the long day and night
It makes a sound like wind.
It travels while our travels
have ended, Here.
There is a stately heron, who
comes to fish in the noon.
Yesterday I saw the hummingbird,
only minutes after I had reached
to hang his red feeder.
I was pleased at his arrival.
I spent a small time wondering,
how he knew where to find us,
just as he had done in
all those green summers,
far away.
Intelligent Design
for Christopher Hitchens
I cannot give
much credence
to divine
intervention,
Even at the
risk of my
defying
a redemption.
But I have faith
that it would
be wholly
mistakable,
To endorse any
god who’d make
a bone that
was breakable.
Copyright © Daniel T. Moran 2013