For Lisa - from Ted Heimerdinger

"When the poems were coming, they were easy.  Lisa was easy to poem to."- TH

For Lisa    (9/14/11)

Tonight I remember all the things

I've done and not done today.

I washed two of my Mt. Olive Jumbo Pickle jars,

So big they could be houses for toads,

Snakes and lizards…

I use them for compost.

It can take me months to empty the jar,

To eat the pickles,

But I can’t resist buying…

And it’s a good deal on pickles.

I put up the two sliding screens to the balcony.

Lots of WD-40 for the wheels.

Now I can let the cats out there at night

Where they can be hypnotized by the bats;

Just hope Pantha doesn’t do a swan dive

Down to the Black-eyed Susans.

Zippy is much too fat and way too sedate.

I didn’t give blood, missed a precinct meeting,

Didn’t take my weekly hike.

My parsley is going off,

And the half bushel of peaches

In the fridge, needs to be used.

Then I thought of you working so hard

To spray paint the fiberglass columns…

Was it for Aida or Thais?

You were learning how

To spray with a Binks Air Gun

And you did,

With care and love and passion.

Ó  2011  ted heimerdinger