Red, Brown, and Yellow Leaves

Crunch underfoot, craft-glue something,
make a kid earn money leaf-blowing.
Just enjoy red-shifted leaves and don't read
some melancholy metaphor.
This is biking weather. Wear gloves,
keep your fingers warm and you'll be fine.
Our hemisphere will have its turn
on the sunny side again next summer,
and Earth will be fine; the old girl's got
a billion-odd good orbits in her yet,
and meanwhile the kids will work it all out.

Free Verse

This verse is freer than I am.
It can rhyme if I take the time,
or alliterate a little--or a lot.
Even tetrametric trochees;
fun to read (if soporific!)
And we can imagine whatever we want--
let's rest under a tree
and pop open a Belgian beer
on a planet of TRAPPIST-1!--
while on Earth we shelter in place.

Lockdown Limerick

A trip to the movies can be tonic
to life's stress. But it's ironic
  (though I'm no cinéaste
  or snob) that our last
  outing downtown
  for a show pre-lockdown
starred a CG hedgehog named Sonic.

Pluto

Long time, lonely Pluto plied
the outermost orbit (or we thought so).
The scarcest speck in a telescope,
'til New Horizon's postcards home
revealed a frozen but varied view,
since then known by names of nightmares--
a topography of fictional terrors--
chthonian beings, Cthulhu to Balrog.
And the north pole of the psychopomp
moon Charon is Mordor itself.

Be Mine!

Who's'll be the one I kiss by moonlight,
or noonday sun or twilight?
Suezle's the one I'll kiss--and how!
And she'll kiss me back! Mee-yow!