David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Memorial Day Screech Owls

Living along the parade route in a small village is often an invitation for unexpected visitors on Memorial Day, so I usually keep a few extra beers and cold cuts in the fridge.  But long after the  festivities yesterday, I entertained a small crowd of the most unusual guests who required neither a  cold brew nor a quick bite.  Perched in the large sugar maple growing just a few feet from both my front porch and the road were seven pint-sized screech owls.

The Housatonic at West Cornwall (poem)

There’s no tonic like the Housatonic.
                             Oliver Wendell Holmes

Shadowed by green humped hills,
anglers cast into riffles
and pocket-water where trout
linger among rocks, rising for flies
with concentric ripple kisses.
Carefully they wade over cobbles
as swallow acrobats dart
and swoop for insects.

Absorbed in the swash and roll
of the river as it seethes beneath
the barn-red covered bridge,
they briefly awaken to the rhythmic
rumble of tires on dry boards.

Occasionally they pull magic
from the water like a dream hauled
from the depths of sleep, glistening
silver, rainbowed or stippled in lucent
pink, orange and yellow.

But every shining, defiant beauty
is returned before drowning in air,
as PCBs secretly poison sediments
where the miracle electric age chemical
bringing “good things to life” lies
layered like fossils, marking a time
when fish were turned to forbidden
fruit contaminated by knowledge.

Finding Irony (and Golf) in an Every Day Place

After a hiatus of more than half a decade, we’re lucky to have golf back near my home in Canton, Connecticut.  No, it’s not on the iconic rolling meadows along U. S. Route 44 that had been the Canton Public Golf Course.  That once bucolic site is now the Shoppes at Farmington Valley, a retail Mecca peppered with upscale stores.  Rather, golf has gone inside and high tech at Canton Indoor Golf Center.  The new venue features a delightfully playful and glowing black light, pirate-themed miniature golf course.  It also has eight high-definition golf simulators and an undulating putting green, as well as a bar and restaurant.

Poetry on Television: Get it Live (Almost)!

Can't come to a reading?  Get it live only one step removed!  Check out my televised poetry reading at   https://simsburytv.org/v/e0wEK7XizFc  and travel from the deepest interior emotional confines to the unlimited spaciousness of the stars without parting company with the comfort of your computer screen.  Don't leave written words to print alone.  Listen to poetry and watch those words leap off the page and dance (or at least try to)!

A Path Lit by Bright Slime Molds

The brightest floral color along a popular stretch of rail-trail that follows the Farmington River near my Collinsville, Connecticut home has nothing to do with flowers.  It’s a phenomenon I’ve never before  witnessed.  And though it is a natural event, it was brought about serendipitously by human activity.  For the last few weeks the path has been lit by iridescent, gelatinous orange slime molds growing on a series of freshly cut tree stumps.