days spinning faster
now toward twilight it seems
hours before dawn
years ago hours
lived, died, born again screaming
before twilight’s edge
watch the dawn hours
spin, dizzy and drunk with years,
into twilight’s grave
Twilight Days
Category: Nature
Plantings
I tire of seeing memes about having a positive attitude and choosing one’s feelings plastered
social media. It is no surprise our young people are in the midst of a mental health crisis when constantly bombarded with messages telling them, in essence, “The only reason you are sad is because you are making the choice to be sad,” or, (one of my favorites for sabotaging anyone’s self esteem) “You have a choice to make your day wonderful or not.” While such simplistic messages are well meaning, I believe they are sometimes extremely toxic. After all, what if your parent died on that day? Did you make the choice to have a horrible day? What if you go home to a toxic abusive environment? How can you choose to make your day wonderful? So before reposting those wonderful positive messages on social media, let’s all take a step back and think about what we are really saying to someone who may be going through something or in an environment where there is no choice in the matter but to feel what he or she feels. Let’s send messages that say it’s okay to feel what you feel and acknowledge it and to take time to feel it all,so something can be gained from it—a lesson, a positive action taken, whatever it may be, so we know our suffering was not for naught. Hence, this piece.
I gathered my despair,
my tears, my losses, all my grief.
Sat with each,
held them close,
let them dry,
waiting for spring.
When the ground warms,
softening, ready for tilling,
I will plant my despair,
sow my tears,
plough rows for my losses,
dig a hole deep enough to hold all my grief.
In the turning of time,
from the shrubs of my despair,
I will snip flowers and herbs
for healing others.
From the vines of my tears,
I will pluck the fruits and vegetables
to pile upon the table for all who need.
From the fields of my losses,
I will reap the harvest grain
to store for when a time of need arrives.
Finally, from the tree of all I grieve.
I will pick the sweetest fruit
of memory.
Hardened Earth
dry, drought ridden earth
riddled with cracks inches wide
forms chasms decades deep
layered in dry dust
rising as rain pelts away,
determined to flood
chasms, erasing all cracks
but this earth is too hardened
unyielding to any rain,
seeking to soften hard soil
Return
Weekend Writing Prompt #267: This weekend your challenge is to write a poem or a piece of prose in exactly 31 words using the word “Return”.
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/category/weekend-writing-prompt/
I envy the monarch’s, the hummingbird’s arc of return,
infinite, eternal.
My jealousy consumes as I have
no return, no cycle—
Only the damnation of this linear thing,
finite, directionless.
No Lexicon
There exists no lexicon
For the echoes of emptiness here–
Where the azaleas bloom
Purple, pink, and white,
While dusty looking
Lavender sends up
Multiple spikes,
As roses yield up
Open, thirsting mouths
To the sky.
Though the soil here
Nourishes color and green
Growing things,
While life appears
Apparently abundant,
Although neighbors smile and wave,
The soil remains absent of truth, of meaning,
Of love—of a spirit—of a soul.
No lexicon exists for the emptiness
Echoing throughout the soil
In this place.
Spring Melting
Spring threatens to melt into us. Summer follows soon enough. Birds will return, seeking seeds and worms, Building nests for the young to come. Will the birds remember the songs they sing? Songs of summer, songs to mate? Flowers will emerge, warming their petals And leaves under a brilliant sun. Will they remember how to open Their blossoms? Will they remember how to dress themselves In glorious color? How can the birds or flowers remember When the world walks a tightrope Over the abyss And sunflowers may never grow again Tall enough to bow their heavy heads to God?
An Autumnal Baptism
Caught in the evening downpour, I am washed clean of summer. Summer’s red rock, red dirt dreams Sluiced from me with this autumnal drenching. Morning greets me with a cool hand Of sunshine upon my brow. Autumn whispers of a harvest Under skies of bluest topaz. A clear, clean, honest reaping In days yet to be had.
Freedom of Wings
Haunting seen In darkening clouds Of chrysalis dreams Where wanting, Where desiring, Haunt seen Cease existing-- In this capturing No ring pierced through Butterfly wings Dripping still From newly emerging Dreams not tended.
nothing thwarted
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/08/07/weekend-writing-prompt-221-thwart/
We thwart not the sun or the moon, the movement of planets, the coming of rains or drought. We neither thwart our birth nor death. We try to thwart what our hearts feel And the desires with which it plagues us, But our hearts feel and desire still. Even our tears cannot be thwarted-- though they may not fall, the tears fall unseen.
Tethered
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/weekend-writing-prompt-216-tether/
Lightning cracked the sky today
Very nearly tethering Desire and Want,
Who entwined, rolling from edge
To edge of the horizon—
And I walked,
Thinking I’d make it home
Before pelting rain could chill
My heated sweating skin.
But I did not.
Clothes soaking,
Wet through—
I made it home,
Trailing water drops
Down the hall.
Finally, dry and warmed,
Dressed in fresh clothes,
I looked outside
To find a pink sky,
With clouds tethered
To the earth like me.
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 