Duane L. Herrmann writes

FLY WITH ME

I want to fly 
like butterflies – 
wings  
colorful  
bits of beauty.
Oh, that I  
could also fly.
I stretch and stretch  
and WINGS appear!!
Slowly dry them  
in warm sun  
and off  
into clouds.
Finding food  
I drink deep  
and merge  
into flower colors.
Come!
Fly with me!

Duane L. Herrmann writes

LITTLE BODIES

Tiny corpses:
skunks, possums,
rats and coons,
trapped for bait
and left to rot
to draw
their predators:
for them
an alluring stink!

Duane L. Herrmann writes

FROZEN TAN

Northern sky  
of pale orange sun  
filled with streaks  
of pinks, blues, and whites  
contrasting above  
skeletons of trees,  
frozen tans of grass,  
fields of snow and stubble:  
final colors  
of a dying day.
One day and time,  
one civilization,  
passes for another  
cycling through time  
we see only 
when looking far enough  
across time and space  
and experience.

Duane L. Herrmann writes

BABY BONDING

I talked to her –    
wide eyed  
she listened,  
our mother couldn’t bother,  
while I held her bottle:  
my first job, at two.
Later, she was the one  
to play with:  
a companion  
at last.
When brothers came  
we both worked –
a team. 
I was taller  
to reach stove knobs  
we had to cook,  
mother  
was “too busy.”
Competition too:  
washing dishes alternating weeks:
I would NOT wash hers,  
she would NOT wash mine:  
we understood being fair –
Our mother didn’t.
Submissive, we survived  
but in the world –   
lacked defenses.

Duane L. Herrmann writes

GRIEVING FOR…

Have you ever grieved,  
or even thought,  
of the deaths  
of uncounted millions  
of creatures  
and beings,  
some sentient,  
some not,  
on countless planets  
orbiting
how many suns  
that go nova?
Painful, 
fiery deaths,  
agony instant,  
then ending – 
and no one else  
will ever know!