Autumn

Cooler evenings and mornings make being outdoors

A blessing

Sun’s heat at full force by two but the intensity of summer

is fading

plants and birds know

and celebrate 
surviving summer

without regard for the coming winter

Hey You !

Up there by the driver

Getting on two stops after me

Dark eyes sparkling in the sun

Where are going when you get off two stops before me?

Downtown near market square, shopping? working?

Every day the same time, the same stop

Regular like a clock, that gives me 15 minutes

to say hello, someday

New Cat ?

Four bowls, three cats

But today the extra bowl was in use

Four heads down, all places at the table taken

Counting, two blacks, one grey and white

Those are known

but there is another, a black one with a different face and beady eyes

and twin white stripes running down its back

hey you’re not a cat,    
run kitties run !

The Protesters were Gone

The protesters were gone

leaving the streets quickly

when the tanks showed up

with soldiers trailing behind

feeling nervous, not invincible

in their hurry to clear the streets

to make room for the army

people dropped placards 

their demands answered by armed men

later when the tanks passed through

orange suited prisoners, with brooms and buckets

making  50 cents per hour

swept listlessly, restoring the street

but their brooms missed the ideas

that demonstrators brought and left behind