I had an argument with all my words today.
For they would not stay
in their delightfully organized spots.
Seems, if you will,
they wanted to jump around and play,
ignoring the sense of my color coded dots.
I must admit I lost my patience, yelling,
“We will never accomplish
anything useful if you play
In this most rambunctious way.”
To this, they in unison whined,
“Why must we be serious all the damn time?”
And to that, I could not provide argument.
Thus, we decided to play
And took a vacation today.
The Rabbit
https://amanpan.com/2021/06/10/eugis-weekly-prompt-nature-june-10-2021
When trying to respond to Eugenia’s prompt this week, this poem, which I posted a couple of years ago kept coming into my head, and no matter how I tried, it would not go away. In this reposting, it is my hope that it serves some purpose. Perhaps, someone will gather something from it.
A rabbit stilled,
Motionless, as if frozen
In the summer grass
Only her nose twitched, flared
The scent of wrongness–
A touch upon the air,
And she knew
Only flight carried safety
Flight, the right choice to make—
If she could only still move.
But she could stand only statue still
And standing so, the trap sprung
Steel teeth clamping down,
Slicing through skin,
Chewing through chunks of muscle
As she struggled,
Daring not to scream
As screams would bring the predators.
This she knew too well.
The trap now biting into bone,
Her struggles stopped.
Her panting calmed.
Her head rested upon the grass.
One eye looked to a cloudless sky.
She prayed for strength to chew
Through bone.
Morning
No words in the moment.
Just touch,
Feeling.
No adequate metaphors
To be found.
No fancy turns of phrases
To be made.
A breath.
Watch the sun rise.
No dance of words
To map the moment.
Simple really,
A heartbeat close.
A breath.
A touch.
A feeling.
A moment.
Captured.
Crescendo
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/category/weekend-writing-prompt/
Crescendo, sun rise,
Swells an upsurge of color,
Fades too fast for me.
Ever loudening,
The business of the day trades
Scenes of memories.
Diminuendo comes,
An end, a small death of colors
As day slowly fades.
Washed
https://new2writing.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/writephoto-beach/#like-5743
( An older poem written in 2015 while in Provincetown, MA. Revised for this week’s writephoto challenge.)
At sunrise over water,
Remembering as if in a dream
The child and you and me
As we stood by a sea
Half a world away.
Both of you now baptized differently by my tears.
And for and from you,
I am left with things neither given
Nor felt in years,
Linked by all the fears
To form over a decade of a life
Lived like a stranger
In my own shrinking skin.
I have stood
Since the dawn
At this ocean’s edge
Waiting, waiting.
And now at noon
The rain begins.
Fierce pelting blows
Washing me clean
Of all I know
Or dare to dream.
For living continues
Within my own skin
Dawn
Clouds drift in night’s sky,
Stretching,
As if yearning,
To touch the horizon,
Dawn yet hours away–
She neither “walks in beauty
Like the night” as Byron wrote
Nor does she stand upon a scallop shell
Riding the sea foam to shore
As Botticelli painted—
No, nothing so over done
Simply, she rises, flaming
Over the desert mountains.
The Willow Trees
https://onewomansquest.org/2021/05g/24/vjs-weekly-challene-trees/
In the stillness of days between,
The willows long to reach across the stream,
Breaching distance impossible.
Without the breeze,
Their branches hang in solitude,
Their leaves nearly tears,
Longing drips with want heavy in the air
Until finally—thunder—
Lightning— A breeze teases,
Limbs reaching,
Almost, nearly touching—
And then the wind begins,
Whipping one direction,
Then another, almost swirling,
Limbs, leaves touch
Across the stream
Solitude breached.
Lingering
The silk of waking
To dreams yet dreamed
Linger in the sky
Adrift in gray clouds
Carrying visions of possibilities
That yet may be
The Great Heron
I greeted the Great Heron
With a hello.
Then asked for some wisdom
Or some secrets of the earth.
But the Great Heron
Didn’t bother with a no.
Just a fluff of feathers
Before turning away
Without being troubled
To even look at me.
The red wing black birds
Chittered away in laughter
As the gentle doves
Cooed soothingly.
The crows cawed,
Rather obnoxiously,
About time running down.
I said I knew
And was aware of the beauty
In lessons along the way.
Even in the lessons so painful
You thought they might
Break your soul in two
Held a beauty in the end.
The crows disliked what I said,
And they couldn’t disagree,
So, screaming out a caw,
Flew away.
Turning his eyes to me,
The Great Heron shifted on his log,
Before opening his wings
And flying away,
Letting me know
He had nothing to say.
All Things New
Storm clouds rode in
Upon a sky soaked in sunset red.
Wildflowers bowed their heads
Down on either side
As I drove by
Smiling, thinking of all things new.
Once home, I stood in the yard,
Arms akimbo, welcoming the new—
What the storm, the wind, the rains
Would bring—
As gently as their nature could—
All things new, clean, green
With spring.
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 