Appointment with a chiropractor today
for my usual adjustment. He pushed
and hammered; these old bones popped.
Alignment completed. What aligms our minds
and spirits? After cruelty snd terrorism
infiltrate our very existence, we long for peace.
God’s Holy Word, a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.
when you
place faith in someone,
they have power
to take everything
you love
and leave you
broken,
on hands and knees,
crying in
empty field
its juvenile
the way I sneak out
to just catch a glimpse
of what we could be
or would have been.
Clearly
this is past tense
as I see you walking to blue heron
with a sorority girl
in a polka dot dress.
here, where no one walks and
an osage ochard glooms the light
i cannot begin to imagine what
this clumpy lump could be
i bend and in bending smell
this thing that breathes
in and out in and out
a mushrom that’s become my kin
Summer morning swirls slow
in my coffee steam, in my sticky
eyelids. Shamrocks in the windowsill
suck sunlight through their wide
leaves like open palms and arms
stretching after a long sleep.
Before I can sink down below
the brim of couch cushions,
shrill screams break through
my clouded veil and I rise. Out
the door, across the deck, a streak
of red lightening reaches down
as my beagle leaps up to swallow it.
For a second, the two of us stop.
We stare at each other as if wondering
if we are both still in bed asleep.
Pleading eyes, he won’t let go.
The cardinal sits, wings folded
as if that long tongue was his own
landing pad. I pry our visitor free,
lead him to a safe branch
and console the lightning catcher.
here, where no one walks and
an osage ochard glooms the light
i cannot begin to imagine what
this clumpy lump could be
i bend and in bending smell
this thing that breathes
in and out in and out
a mushrom that’s become my kin
It’s a windows-flung-open-to-the-heavens
kind of twilight, fireflies failing to navigate
the space between my window panes
and their unlimited domain of sky,
lightly bumping into the wire screens,
trailing glowing bits across the panels
that fade in a few moments’ time.
It’s a can’t-get-cool-no-matter-what
kind of evening, breeze unable to weave
through piles of discarded yoga capris
and thick-knit short-sleeved tops
that litter the floor and bed,
leaving me lying here, sprawled out
unladylike in a sleeveless shift dress–
one with the fading fireflies who can’t find their way,
riding the breeze ’til it lands me somewhere new.
About the time me being me
Seemed near to happening,
Daddy came home, and pop,
no sooner than he landed
than there was new baby
Pushing its way on to our laps.
Sure enough, Mother was pretty
Soon too sick to be aggravated.
Daddy too busy to help. Guess who
Learned to cook, milk the cow,
Tend the chickens, carry bed pans
Study and then flirt on rare occasions?
Somewhere in there childhood
Got swept under the needs hanging
Around every corner. Long time since
That old feather bed hugged me safe.
Wish some sage had warned lost was
Temporary, being found a heavy yoke.
K. Bruce Florence
As the young man took a pause from his labor
he took in a deep breath and inhaled the mixture of now and bitter cold air
that had been flying constantly downwind through the tent and tarps covering the thirty-five centimeter trench that he and the rest of the seven person crw had painstakingly dug.
” I hate centimeters”, he thought, ” it’s hard enough being mindless inthis weather, even harder if you have to be precise.”
As he looked past the tent towards what used to be the scenic view of mountainsides covered in oak and pine far in the distance and an old bridge over the river waiting patiently for the net train to arrive and play it’s sorrowful howling tune across the countryside, but instead in place of all that was amassive blanket of fog, covering the moutains and the fields
clouding everything
and the snow never ceasing
driven by a cruel wind
