57 TREES

Scientists reckon 400 billion

trees share earth with us, share life’s air with us.

Let each human care for 57,

choose them on sight, touch each one and discuss

what care means. Make each cypress a playmate,

each oak a resting place. I’ve studied you

frolicking among an old cypress’s

vines, resting with your sister—a brief queue

of two—on an oak’s bent neck. Caresses

you offer Rocky Mountain pines relate

how you understand.  When our trees first rose

millions of years ago, did our first lives

run among them, swing branches in air dance,

our bright spirits nourished by all that thrives

in nature? You, poised in your yoga stance

on one leg atop a stone, that blue spruce

mutely looking on, must confirm it all,

its body and your body standing tall.

Roger Armbrust

December 30, 2014

YODA

I sense from sayings

he imparts, that ugly fart’s

really pretty smart.

DAYCARE NIGHTMARE

Mama left me with her little angel

who morphed into a devil later on.

The kid defied me from every angle.

Why do they always wait till momma’s gone

to throw their tantrums, toss up their food,

fling their fragile toys, wet the bed and floor?

Why do they always pretend to be good

until their smiling momma’s out the door?

Why is it a crime to dunk little heads

in toilets, to scrape butts with sandpaper,

to bite their wriggly toes until they’ve bled?

I think I’ll write “Babysitter’s Caper,”

a screenplay meant to make tiny brats cringe,

seeing water-boarding as our revenge.

Roger Armbrust

December 17, 2014

HARD-WON TIMES

My heart hides behind flickering candles,

behind soft music like Jules Massenet’s

“Meditation”. I can’t seem to handle

crowds anymore, those animal displays

of emotion from ordered violence

and surface chants. I work best one on one

these days—over coffee and confidence—

words meant for only you and me. Hard-won

times alone in the quiet dark, lying

curled like secure pups or baby sparrows.

When our heartbeats match, when constant crying’s

never questioned, despair’s poison arrow

lies broken on the floor. When we whisper

those brief, honest phrases: lovers’ vespers.

Roger Armbrust

December 13, 2014

NANNERL

She sits on the hill above Wolfgangsee,

hearing her harpsichord compositions

Leopold censored from recitals, pleas

from her brother to challenge him, reasons

too radical for her heart. Recalls how

she loved applause, those bright admiring eyes

of elite audiences when she’d bow

with her brother as one. Those precious cries

for encores. That was long ago. Her men

are all passed on: father, brother, husband.

Soon she’ll return to Salzburg, six children

in tow, work as music teacher, demand

nothing from anyone. She feels fingers

ache for the dear keys. The lost years linger.

Roger Armbrust

December 12, 2014

DON'T BREAK THE SCAB

Don’t break the scab. Let it heal. Let it heal.

Constantly scratching causes infection.

Help your body stay its natural seal,

avoiding deeper ills. Aid reflection

in higher life by folding your soft hands

in prayer, reaching out to the universe.

Pretend gentle fingers are magic wands

turning blank pages into happy verse.

Recall blind Homer calling on the Muse

to help him see, relate his epic tales,

of Anna as poet, anxious recluse,

awaiting her powerful entry. Sail

through heavens, their flaming stars revealing

basic essence of life and its healing.

Roger Armbrust

December 7, 2014

VISIONS

I envision her strumming a guitar

though I’ve never heard her play. Perhaps it’s

her gentle hand caressing trimmed wet hair,

leading me to compare visions. She sits

with right elbow resting on chair’s low neck,

her arm stretching her gentle hand to strong

shoulder. Her fingers lightly run through flecks

of silk highlights natural as rain, long

once as guitar strings, now curling past chin

to throat. Perhaps I once saw a campfire

scene on Facebook, her gentle hands gracing

an acoustic’s neck. Perhaps it’s desire

all humans possess to connect visions

as dawn stretches shoulders of horizon.

Roger Armbrust

December 6, 2014

COLD TURKEY

Hacked half a bird left,

with its meal’s worth of trimmings,

tossed in the garbage.