Turbaned Priest of Autumn

Three crisp leaves
curled up
into the perfect

little sanctuary. Inside,
a turbaned priest
of Autumn

resting
beneath
a silver moon...


c. Douglas Fireman
Posted by Doug at 8:51 AM 0 comments

Yesterday,
I saw a cat-faced leaf
along the garden path.

At first, I thought I'd paste it
in my scrap book,
but when I bent to pick it up,

it meowed two times.
I thought I was hearing things.
Don't know what you'd do,

but I meowed back.


c. Douglas Fireman

Today the shapes
of forest leaves revealed
Seahorse

floating
on Maybell scented
skies

Mouse
briefly meditating
on the Holy Cheese

Cobra
insinuating into
incense memories

Swan sailing
through that memorable
afternoon

when Nature
again performed
her miraculous
magic act

c. Douglas Fireman

Plain As Day

This morning
in the woods
I saw a bearded unicorn

with a broken horn
It seemed oblivious
to the beaver

just behind
those leaves
gnawing wood

Amazed
I stood squinting
in the forest mist

For breakfast
had a gimlet
and a chaser

But no my eyes
did not deceive me
Took a pic

to prove the critters
were actually there
Uploaded it

to Flickr
There they were
plain as day.

c. Douglas Fireman

Spirit Bird

When you first flew
into my sight, oh spirit bird,
I heard your wings flapping
against a dream-filled sky.

Now, you sit quietly on that crack
in the mountain wall,
your songs heard
only by the dead, and those

who pause long enough
to merge
with your avian
soul.

c. Douglas E. Fireman

As I walked
the dust laden path
toward the source
of who I am,

tears fell freely.
I saluted that noble visage,
apparent stone,
yet bone of my bone;

another ancestor,
living on the heart ridge
now honored
and revered.

c. Douglas Fireman

Original photo taken
in Petra, Jordan.

Shaman In the Garden

Was it a shaman in the dense
underbrush watching me
or just a projection

of my insanity? A grown man
seeing a shaman in a leaf
might make one think,

"what a leap this guys taken
into whacksville. A leaf is a leaf."
Just last week

I saw the Mad Hatter in the bark of a tree,
a maiden on the face of the moon,
the Spanish Armada embedded

in stone, and King Solomon
on the front of a dried mushroom.
So yes,

to some, I'm partially whacked,
but really, I'm just a bloomin
pareidoliac.

c. Douglas Fireman

I found
a scarab beetle

etched in stone

circling round
a labyrinthine
design

It's the center stone
within my labyrinth now

Deepest bows
to Nature's
epigraphy

c. Douglas Fireman

Bearded Wood Sage

"The term pareidolia (pronounced /pæraɪˈdoʊliə/) describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- —"beside", "with" or "alongside...)—and eidolon—"image" (the diminutive of eidos—"image", "form", "shape.")


Gramps could take 'pitchers'
all day with his new
Kodak camera.

He even snuck up on Gramma
and took a pitcher
of her sleepin with her mouth open.

Every week-end
Gramps would take me to the woods
to search for 'crazy shots.'

That's what he called em.
He'd take pitchers of the strangest
things:

like tree bark or a leaf that reminded him
of Abraham Lincoln.
I often thought that Gramps was drinkin

especially when he got down
on all fours and found
that dead tree limb.

Why he grinned wider than a china plate.
"Take a look at this wormspeak," he said.
"undeciphered messages."...

Then Gramps was off again.
Every season we'd traipse
through the forest,

cameras in hand, and when
I'd yell out "Oh look!-
Gramps would come a runnin."

The day I discovered
the Bearded Wood Sage,
Gramps wasn't around any more.

But if he was,
I knew he'd say,
"Look what Dougie's found!"

c. Douglas Fireman