Category: Poetry

I Wish You Could Know This Day (For My Dad)

I Wish You Could Have Known This Day by Leslie Noyes 

I wish you could have known this day, green life yearning up through the earth, bright warmth bearing 

Down from the sky. The warning screech of a protective mother guarding her threatened nest 

Upstaging a chorus of cicadas running through their limited range of vocal exercises. A pair of 

Cardinals flirting outrageously, too caught up in their dance to worry about me. How I wish you were here.

We talk about how much you’d have loved this place. I can picture you scolding the squirrels, even as

You throw tidbits of your breakfast to them.    You’d have sat on the porch, smoking and chatting up the

Neighbors. You remembered first names. 

Sorry About The F Word

If I stood right now, hefted myself up from a leather chair in a crowded Starbucks,
would the silly young

Couple speaking enthusiastically of things better left for more private places notice if I fell flat on my

Face after taking three steps, slipping in a carelessly ignored puddle of some iced coffee drink? Likely they’d laugh

Before talking even more loudly about who had drunk texted him saying he was hot and who had been too fucked up

Last night and needed a ride home. They are either oblivious to their audience or fishing for a bigger one.

Inside on a Rainy Day


Is there anything more wonderful than a rainy Sunday morning? Plip plopping drops sluicing down the roof,

Streaking across the window panes in a hurry to puddle up with their brothers and sisters on the driveway.

Dreamers lulled back to sleep by age old rhythms, the roll of thunder, the silence in between, waking to the smell of

Coffee an hour gone by in a blink. Cats snuggled under the covers. One detests the storm; the other relishes

Being present for this unexpected treat of extra time spent pleasantly cuddled on a perfect rainy Sunday. 

Slow Motion

Like a glacial landslide
Inexorable, inevitable,
One mere inch at a time
The panic grows

Humanity waits alone
At the bottom of the hill,
Daring the drifts to stop
As progress slows.

The cries are anguished,
Circumstances advance
Like a cancer on the skin,
Yet everybody knows.

Keep the tides at bay
Hold the line, tote that bale
Slam shut the heavy doors
While despair feeds the crows.

Color Blind

Color Blind by Leslie Noyes

I once professed to color blindness, black, white, red, brown, all people looked the same, I claimed,

But the skin and its store of melanin or lack thereof does not a person make. No, color is bone deep, 

Soul drenched, and we are different in beautifully messy ways. Better to be color aware than color

Blind. Better to celebrate the tints and tinges of pigments than to ignore our unique differences. 

Peace, people.

The Work of Being a Cat


I cannot imagine how difficult it must be, the work of being a cat. Between naps in the sun, one 

Must stalk every individual dust mote that filters through a ray of light on its way from window to rug.

Then there’s the bathing of fur, pink tongue seeking out any hint of dirt or foreign substance with

A rough lick and a promise to bathe again should something upset the delicate balance between 

Tidy and soiled, anxious and calm. Pleasured purring while kneading must be exhausting work 

And is often closely followed by head butting and a thrice circled snuggle into mom’s cozy lap. 

Scratching at posts, and pouncing on catnip-stuffed felt mice often induce wide yawns and paws

Covering eyes. A quick burst of energy when the word, treat, is uttered, even whispered, results in

A mad dash to the food bowl where petting is tolerated, but just barely. “Mom, petting just wears me out.”