collaboration

Box of Happiness

Valentine ChocolatesYou brought a heart-shaped box of chocolates,
I don’t remember you doing this before,
It was the perfect gift this year
After so much sacrifice and service.

I opened it,
We smelled its richness,
We read all the descriptions of each specialty,
Peanut cluster, mint, caramel, pecan, vanilla nugget,

Then I suggested we each pick one to eat,
You remarked, “I bought them for you.”
I answered, “Eating alone is no fun.”

We each ate three,
Laughing, reveling, declaring their goodness,
Savoring the shared valentine moment.

Reluctantly we closed the glossy lid,
I washed the supper dishes in the glow of
Our heart-felt box of chocolate happiness.

 

Cerita M. Hewett
Feb. 14, 2013
Revised 2014

Cobweb Sweeper (for Edward)

forest running                                    The runner who
                                    Sweeps the cobwebs,
                                    On the paths through the woods,
                                    Before the dawn comes,
                                    Is on vacation.

                                    So the feathery,
                                    Sticky lines,
                                    Hit my face as
                                    I walk through the daylight woods.

                                    I held a twiggy
                                    Branch aloft,
                                    In front of my face today,
                                    To clear them for myself.

                                    My how it changed
                                    My view of the woods.
                                    It was like looking,
                                    Through a cracked
                                    Window pane.

                                    Every vista fractured
                                    By scraggy lines.
                                    But then my face
                                    Was protected and free of webs.

                                     I will be glad when
                                    The dashing cobweb sweeper,
                                    Returns to the forest.

                                                               Cerita M. Hewett
                                                               July 2014
                                                               (revised October 2014)

 

Harvest

                                          We ate thick vegetable soup,

                                          Sitting on the retaining wall,

                                          In the backyard.

                                         Plump piles of leaves

                                         Waited to be mower mulched,

                                         And wheel barreled to the garden,

                                         While we shared cracker,

                                        A kiwi,

                                       An apple.

 

                                     Sun soaked and work warmed,

                                     We talked of pecan harvest,

                                    Grown children,

                                    And Thanksgiving.

 

                                   Neither spoke of love,

                                  But we gathered it anyway.

                                                                                           Cerita M. Hewlett

                                                                                          December 3, 1997

Composting

                                       Ed’s little family can
                                       Eat half a watermelon
                                       In nothing flat!

                                       They chew all the pink off the rind,
                                       Leaving just a little white
                                       Next to the dark green shell.

                                       What Applejacks the pony gets is pitiful,
                                       Still he eagerly gobbles the leavings and
                                       The chickens snatch anything he misses.
                                                                                                Cerita M. Hewett

                                                                                                August 2011