Three foxy fates
stand and wait
guarding the pandemic gate
First, Fever Red
straps you in bed
She pounds a beat inside your head
Then Breathless White
steals your might
and seals your labored lungs up tight
Then Deathly Black
knocks you back
takes your soul, leaves your body slack
These fates are ruthless and badass;
unscathed from COVID, none shall pass
This is for NaPoWriMo and The Sunday Muse. Image by Anatasiya Dobrovolskaya.
I read somewhere
that today is cardigan day
in honor of Mr. Rogers.
This is not a poem,
really,
but I adore Mr. Rogers –
with his cardigans and his sneakers
puppets and fish,
his opera and jazz,
his kindness,
and his radical message
of love of neighbor,
even neighbors with different
colors, nationalities, abilities.
That soft-spoken,
ungainly man
is my hero
and today I will wear a cardigan.
*Note: Image from Smithsonian Magazine
A seed
becomes a world
a cell
becomes a species
for, the smallest thing
can make the biggest difference
So where will you go
what will you do
in this big,
wondrous
world?
I thought all the national poetry business was in April, but I now understand national poetry day is today. And I read it online, so it must be true (insert ironic glance). Anyway, with that in mind I decided to post one. So far it’s untitled.
Have you heard the song
the planets sing to one another?
Or felt the yearning
of seed for Earth
and Earth for seed?
Do you know the secret language
whispered between the roots
of the trees?
Does the moon call to you;
does she pull your heart with her
even as she turns her face?
Then
be still,
and pay attention!
Summer
has grown heavy
and dropped from its stem.
The sun sleeps in
a little longer,
leaves the party a bit earlier.
Last night
felt almost like fall
while today is
crisp and sunny.
The leaves are still green
but a shade paler;
chlorophyll
begins to recede.
Time
to change.
Welcome back,
my dearest Autumn.
If I could
I would buy
a bottle of confidence.
In fact
I’d take a case
and keep it
in the pantry.
Then as soon as I was
running low
I’d take out
another bottle
and set it
on the counter
where it would be
convenient,
ready to grab.
But confidence doesn’t
come in bottles.
That would be gin.
And it’s really not
the same thing
at all.
How many times
has the sky opened for you
and lifted you through
to the heavens
to look down
on the rest
of the world?
Never?
Well remember,
there’s a reason for that.
I have trouble
with time.
It is constantly sneaking
away from me,
hiding in the folds of a book,
under a cup of coffee
or behind a daydream
Like a cat,
it stays just out of reach
until I turn my back.
Then it rubs against my legs
nearly tripping me up
Particles, sprinkled on the path,
crunch underfoot
Waves, crash into me
submerge me,
knocking me down
I cannot seem to manage
this time;
so forgive me
if I keep you waiting
I have been reading Rumi and Mary Oliver; most recently “The Truest Devotion” and “Wild Geese”. They put me in a frame of mind to think of things like this:
There is love
And there are rules
And there is love of rules
Which of these do you worship?
My lost friends are stacked,
like playing cards,
set on the table
of my immobility,
my inability to reach out
to communicate.
I think so fondly of them
of the times and adventures we shared
tender, or exciting, or comforting
as close as family,
once
In my mind
I take each one,
examine her, remembering
then I take them all – the stack,
the deck
I shuffle them,
deal them out, face up
and begin another game of
solitaire
This is really rough, but I like the idea of it. I have friends that I have lost touch with, for no reason. We never had a falling out or anything like that. We just were no longer had daily or frequent interactions and either business or inertia or something has kept us apart. I got this image while driving and thinking, and tried to write it down (without crashing).
“Friends I have lost, structured like playing cards,” is my note. This makes me think of two things. One is the Virginia Woolf quote, something like, I have lost friends, some to death some to the sheer inability to cross the street.
The other thing it reminds me of is the Pink Floyd song about pictures of faces on newspapers …their folded faces to the floor….
Anyway, some work needed, but it’s a promising start.
In Other Words 