Tag: Nature

Winter’s Will

image courtesy of ALEX VASILYEV on wired.com

There is no understanding

how winter comes

for it comes in too many ways

at too many times

often when it shouldn’t

starting at the edges

creeping to the core

snatching away all the covers

driving out the flames

or

slowly, softly

almost tenderly

like a gentle, timid lover

will winter drift into days

as autumn delicately falls

little dip by little dip into winter’s icy arms

then a frozen world is made.

At times winter rides

with sword drawn

into spring

after life has begun

to wreck havoc on all things

green and growing,

make still all hearts feeling the flow of life begin,

at those times, winter rides

until sweated out

in the course of time.

Yet winter may freeze us solid

in the midsts of summer’s heatwaves

as we stand over gaping mouths of graves.

While some breathing in the hope of spring

as others live in winter’s black ice

suffering the bite of hunger and need

winter’s winter grows larger still

beyond Arctic, beyond talk of tundra,

or talk of some kind of permafrost—

but something too many know.

we will not end in fire

nor will we end in ice

in the end,

it will be the lukewarm breeze

of indifference,

the one to do us in.

 

 

Twilight Days

image is my own

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

https://godoggocafe.com/2022/11/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-november-8-2022/

Plantings

Image courtesy of https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Green-grapes-on-the-vine-with-morning-gl/0F474D245DD85FB8
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

Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash

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

pexels-miriam-fischer-2671074
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.

Endlessness

Image courtesy of Pexels.com

https://godoggocafe.com/2022/06/21/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-june-21-2022/

Todays prompt: Begin a poem with “endless”

Endless winds rustling

Through leaves baked a thin crisp green

By summer’s noon sun.



Endless wilting flowers

Reaping words of empty dust

Sands away meaning.



Endless hope sprouts blooms

In the dry cracked refuge of earth

A survival scented thing.

Spring Melting

image courtesy of southernexposure.com

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?

The Willow Trees

Image from Pinterest

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.

Guarded Trail

Image courtesy of Sue Vincent
Thursday photo prompt: Guarded #writephoto | Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo (scvincent.com)

Give me a minute.

Let me have another cup of coffee,

Will you?

Before I slosh on after,

Down the trail–

Again– maybe.

You say, a guard now stands there,

Of the newer variety,

Who advises of the locust thorns,

The kind that pierces the shoe

And can go straight into your foot?

Could have used that advice–

Once or twice

Maybe thrice

In life.

But now I’ve rubbed my thumbs

Over the sharp tipped thorns of regret

Until callouses formed.

Then I moved on to other

Fingertips until bloody, raw,

Proving to myself the sharpness of thorns.

So now, you say this stony guardian warns

Of all the thorns

Along the paths and trails?

Might this guardian advise of a thornless trail?

I really wouldn’t care, but the soles of my feet

Are without callous, and I’d like to keep them so.

Send me down a muddy, sloshy trail where

I might just fall and break my neck.

That would be simply fine,

If the soles of my feet

Remain as soft and unmarred

as a baby’s behind.

The Friction of Salt

 

woman at sea

Image from Shutterstock

 

Pieces of her broke in the waves,
Searching for wildness
In this place she always went to be alone.
She walked along this shore a thousand times
In the dawn and the dusk
As if they were quantities unknown,
And thus, in them, she could discover some truth,
Some faith, some charity, some hope for herself.
Who knew? It had worked before.
She’d walk toward the town with something—
Some small bit piece replenished.

Besides–
She’d always heard salt was healing,
So she figured she’d rub it in her wounds.
But bloody red and raw
She walks still wounded, broken,
Along the wildness,
Yet not touching it.
Freedom elusive.
She can not find what she lost.
Her wounds chains,
Binding her still
To things she knew illusions.
She waits for the friction of salt
To rub away the chains.
She walks toward the seals in the surf
And on toward the whales in the deep,
Searching for truth or faith or charity
In the wildness of the sea.