Scars of Hope

Image is my own

I gather hardened scars of loss and damage
Braided into keloid beauty
That are not blossoms of bitterness,
But fragrant beauties
That make me who I am.
Even the bars of your barren garden
Called love could not steal away
The essence of my hope.
Instead, the black, barrenness
within sugar syrup words
Of one never able to love
Contain no acid
To eat away
My skin of hope.

Beauty of His Work

Image is my own

High in the air,

Buffeted by the strong winds,

Yet navigating the narrow beam

With a grace and strength of Baryshnikov 

Or the great Nureyev

As I, his audience awed by his performance,

Stood and watched,

Wondering if everyone who looked

Could see this man’s artful grace

As he seemed to defy all laws of gravity,

Bending to hammer,

Leaping to rise,

Prancing to walk.

 

Then bending once again,

Hammering, rising, walking.

Never thrown off balance

By the winds or heavy hammer

Or the weighty leather tool belt,

Carrying the long nails off to the side.

 

Who else saw the grace and strength

In the rhythm of the dance

This man did perform

In the building of that house—

A dance that held something,

Some paternal element of David

As he danced entering Jerusalem—

 

How many would see the beauty in the performance of his work?

How many would only see a Hispanic male and question his legal status?

 

First Day of May

Image courtesy of Givingcompass.org

 

Winds and rains came today.

I tried to follow the trail

They made.

But on this first day of May,

I was not strong enough–

To let the wind take me,

To allow pelting rain to abrade away

All my accumulated grime.

No freedom could I find

Within this day of winds and rains.

The Struggle

Image courtesy of Flickr

Weekend Writing Prompt #206 – Restless | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

Restless roses

climb skyward

toward the eternal

their grace defeated

as winds thrust

them downward

toward dirt

they escape.

Music of Hope

Image courtesy of Pxhere.com

Eugi’s Weekly Prompt – Dance – April 22, 2021 – Eugi’s Causerie (amanpan.com)

My dance was escape

From the always too much vine

You are, crawling over the souls of others,

Choking them with tendrils of your love.

My dance, too strong for such tendrils,

Stepping the swirl patterns

Of aloneness,

Finds joy.

My dance, leaving colors of spring

In the wake of its rhythms,

Paints new life into me.

My dance, following no one,

Discovers love in its patterns,

Creating new steps of invitation

To be followed by my soul.

My dance, flaming and firing in warmth,

Burns away the coldness meant to kill.

The Chase of Words

Image courtesy of Windows Report

VJ’s Weekly Challenge: The Chase – One Woman’s Quest II

 

The words—

It is the always—the words—

I have always been

Searching the sidewalks, paths, trails, highways, the sky outside

     For the words—

Combing gently through those I love

     For the words—

Hunting the faces of strangers, my own face, my dogs, my friends

     For the words—

Scouring the hearts, the souls of those I observe

     For the words—

Ransacking restful, peace giving nature

     For the words—

Scourging even, in the chase, my faith

     For the words—

And they are never perfect.

Whispered Tales

Image courtesy of Pinterest.com

A phoenix rises in flames

From out the left side of my chest

With feathers of flame yet,

Set free to fly where it wills.

 

One day, it will return,

Nuzzling deep inside my chest again,

All the ashes gone,

All flame having died away,

Its fiery colored feathers

Whispering, singing to my blood

Of beauty seen,

Of tantalizing things touched,

Of all the air breathed, smelled, felt,

Of the sounds soft and harsh heard

All along the way around the earth.

 

Through the whispered tales

Of those fiery feathers

My blood will tell me

Where I am to go.

 

The Work of Spring

image courtesy of anoregoncottage.com

I clipped away dead branches

From the living shrubs today.

Not an easy thing,

But a thing that must be done.

Strange it is how dead things

Will cling so tightly to the living

As if to squeeze

The last remaining bits of life away

And thus, have company in death and dying.

There is yet more to do

So only the living things are left

To flourish in the spring sun.

Decision on a Birdfeeder

image courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net

 

I hesitate in remembrance

as if the fates would choose

a day of gray and leave me there,

as if a blossoming could be had upon

a second visitation to any day.

 

The creamer clouds disperse and swirl

in my extra strong coffee

like memories of things I wanted–

never had, never attained

all those years ago.

 

Stirring the coffee still,

I stare out the kitchen window.

Decide against a bird feeder

filled with black oil sunflower seeds.

I do not want cardinals here.

People say cardinals are spirits

of those you’ve lost come to visit you—

No.  I want no cardinals here.

No spirits of the lost to visit or say hello.

No twittering or chittering away.

No vibrancy of color outside this window.

No.  Not here.  Not in this place.

 

I’d rather this be a spiritless place,

A virgin place, void of spirits, void of touch—

 

At least for a time

 

 

 

Angels Call

Image courtesy of PixelsTalk.Net
Weekend Writing Prompt #197 – Call | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

 

angels call, singing for a while,

watching us,

aping things they’d heard, saw,

obsessing over things                                            

we tossed away–

time, primarily–

angels lost feathers, attempting to understand

our tossing away time like used tissues, soiled food tins–

when we held little.