Painting the Sky in July

The Fourth
flings a thousand
fireflies around me,
flying from the stems of cattail
sparklers

Sends up
dandelion
puffs blown high in summer
skies, bursting forth sequined sprays
of light

Leaving
a smoky veil,
chalking the darkened dome,
recalling the price of precious
freedom.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus!

Bright-eyed
December peers
through windows framed with frost,
pats the roundness of his belly,
strokes the

whiteness
of his beard—comes
inside when I'm asleep
to taste the cookies left with milk,
stuffs my

stockings
and disappears
but like the star atop
the tree, I know he will come back
next year.

Two Signs of Spring

            I

In the
forsythia
a crow sits as fixed as
the dark center of a Black-eyed
Susan.

            II

Without
ever ruffling
his rust vest, the robin
tugs, pulling his breakfast from brown
moist earth.

Invitation to a Journey in Space

Raindrops,
will you repeat
the coded messages
of extraterrestrials that
I hear?