Beach Walk

The sand on my feet, waves lap at the leg of my pants, the water sometimes warm, sometimes cold. I can walk for miles on the beach and always search for a shell or a rock or some mysterious shape.

The best beach walk is after an all night storm and in the morning there is
calm. If you find your way before dawn there are only a few people. You might be the first to find a sea bean that has travelled all the way from Costa Rica.

water moves on earth
uniting the continents
seeks its own border

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Iowa Bootleg

In the era of prohibition came Templeton Rye

a bootleg whiskey with a golden shine

smuggled in cases for many to try

favorite in speakeasies across the state line

even in Chicago Al Capone said it was fine

numbered small batches still being made today 

from that same old recipe its here to stay
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dVerse prompt on rhyme royal about a whiskey made in Iowa

Freeze

I remember the day the new freezer arrived.  It was huge.  It was from Sears complete with a warranty. Now we could stock up on fresh halibut flown south from Alaska.  Copper River salmon for the outdoor BBQ pit and those two for the price of one whole roasting chickens.  We were carnivores ready to devour our meat as soon as it could be thawed and grilled.  When the wild blackberries were on we picked for shelves of readymade frozen pies, froze Wenatchee peaches, and other things we thought we would have need.

Before we had hardly shut the door, the freezer stopped. We checked the switches.  We shut it off, turned it on, probably hit it a few times or slammed the door.  The repair man came and went to work.   He got it going again.  It is under warranty I say.  Sorry says he.  The warranty doesn’t  cover salamanders.
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dVerse prompt on the frig thus my prose poem on a salamander climbing in the motor of my new freezer

We Search

We search among stones

plain on the outside

mute colors 

occasional glimmer

reflects Iowa sunlight

dig deep to the bottom

of a quarry dreg

pound hard with rock hammer

split open to reveal inside

hope of crystals 

jasper     géodes

trilobites from an ancient sea
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dVerse prompt on hope in quadrille after rock hunting in Iowa

Tallgrass Prairie

Blue stem turkey foot 

Native grass growing again

Balance of nature

  
 

What Grammar?

Mrs Pousche teached
from English Grammar and Composition
where placed each adjective
in sentence structure diagram
prepositional phrases too to or two
it was more then we knew or new
what could we do
being of only fourteen
thinking not of our English
or our composition
we sought the favor of boys
not teachers and spelt our words
void of there meaning
happily rejoiced at the moment
happily rejoiced in the moment
happily rejoiced of the moment
happily rejoiced for the moment

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dVerse prompt to throw grammar out the classroom window

Iowa Harvest

Fields of corn and dust as the combine harvester chops down the whole plant, splices the kernel off the ear and spits out the cob leaving the golden harvest.  The modern day thrashing has made the work fast with tons of corn in a day.  Down the road the ethanol plant will purchase truck loads with jobs for the locals and help to the rural economy.

If the corn is not sold it will be stored in the silos and cribs or fed to pigs who are raised in confinements.  Thousands of pigs confined to small pens where their pig shit falls into a pit to be used as fertilizer.  Fallow are the fields that beckon the first frost.   Fallow are the fields that glow with the first snow.

Winter hardened ground

Frozen against the sharp plow

After harvest time

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dVerse prompt on haibun Monday and the first frost