The Geographer

To find Ireland
the globe was turned.
She sounded out Russia,
and expressed how it upset her
about it invading Ukraine,
and how it has so much land.
She looked then for Italy, Spain,
Germany, and France.

Countries and continents moved,
oceans and hemispheres twirled.
She is six, our Ruth,
and a woman of the world.

Growth Rings

That romantic notion of planting our own garden

became so Trojan and arduous

that we lost heart.

I wonder now what daily chores kept us from seeing

when the wind stopped forcing the trees

to bend right over and arch.

Those minutes of life 

spin around this hub;

growth rings of our time

banked in those tree trunks.