HEAVEN LAKE ( 32 ) ~

photo ~ Jerome Delay

Sick Days

Middle of winter

I knock a bug to the carpet —

what is a bug doing here at

my lamp this time of year?

for the longest time

I have been watching it slow-

ly upright itself on the

heavy weave of carpet as

if it were me —

I can’t stop watching

A Moment In The West

Fairly pretty

In a pale violet

Long skirt, white

Blouse, black hair

Sells me one very blue

Iris from a thick

Bunch in a plastic

Pail, wraps it with paper

And blue string

Then smiles at

Susan who I

Hand it to —

Who takes me

Out and shows

Me more of

Santa Barbara

Our Life

You

&

me

&

then

some

You

The woodpile I stacked in the woods

Is precisely as I left it one month ago

Where I dropped the cherry tree

Bucked it up, split it, stacked it

It was left to the sun, rain, gloom

Harmless showers, longer nights

And if I’m a nice guy

I’ll cover the woodpile

Before it snows

It’s all up to me

___________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

HEAVEN LAKE ( 31 ) ~

photo ~ Graham Leese

When

When the cat

doesn’t get

its way

it does

what none of

us have yet

learned

to

do

it

goes back

to the

couch

curls up

shuts up

I’ll Never Be Poor

How she does it

I don’t know

don’t want

to know

will never

know as

she turns to me and

it’s new all over again

Question

How alone are you?

In your sweet

Baby’s arms

Not Least

A night after

the meteor shower

of the century

wrapped in blankets

we counted shooting stars until

we lost count

though it was a lone star

the next night spearing

the woods darkness

as if a late comer —

that seemed to

count the most

___________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

HEAVEN LAKE (30) ~

Stone Sonnet

A young dump truck driver

with a new truck and a handsome

stainless steel dump body that he

is very proud of and listen how the

load of small stones seem to laugh

as they rush in the thousands down

to the ground

he asks —

“why did you ask for the pile

of stone to be dropped

right in front of the door?”

I said, “if you want something

moved

put it in your way”

Fair Warning

I went to find an old friend today

I had no idea it was a friend until I arrived

over the slope of early spring forest

the snow all vanished

the many spaces without foliage

a clean look for any eye

and coming over the rise

there was my old friend

long gone sugar maple tree

it was my companion decades

ago when cutting winter firewood

in this woodlot, now mostly broken

down and in massive sections rotting

into the earth, and the twenty feet still

standing is beyond recognition, you see

this was a tree I once talked to, knew it

was slowly dying then but I thought it

would take forever and now we are beyond

forever and I’m coming to grips what time

has passed, 200 feet away in my house, so easy

to see from where my friend passed on with-

out a word, in the wind, the winter, summer

play, fall passage and discovery spring —

I’m too late

don’t you be

Framing The Barn

How trusting, relaxed!

Daddy-Longlegs moves

Inches from my hammer blows

The Winter Of Big Snow

I shoveled more

snow bank today

cut it like

a wedding cake

moved the blocks 

of snow as if

I was indeed

building an

igloo —

I did once

with my

son

he adored it

we both crawled inside

________________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018