At Raven Run
Sitting on the rocks
Looking upon the river
With my family
By Laura and Christopher (Son)
Sitting on the rocks
Looking upon the river
With my family
By Laura and Christopher (Son)
teeth grind
jaw locks
grip tightens
eyes unable to blink
heart stops
a monotone reply
with no meaning
falls from lips
dont touch
your breath is enough
to make me cringe
there’s a rare-shackled mote
that’s haunting my throat, rubbing pressure blisters to scars and scarring me whole.
in silence it speaks in my stolen voice:
forget not that you are mortal.
take this hand and mortify
your flesh, your tongue, your words.
take heed:
walk among angels or heel here at their heels—
nails for soles, ground for earth, earth for soul and dust for worth.
—————————————————————————–
take nothing, leave only a trail of thinned-out ink.
I dare not argue long with Death for fear that she might pause,
And spend too long a time with me explaining of her laws.
But when she stopped this morning at the house just up from mine,
To remonstrate with her awhile, I found myself inclined.
I did not know my neighbor well, I saw him in the yard,
Still less yon’ thousand-year-old oak know I in this regard.
Its roots pull up the earth around, to form a little hill,
Its crown gilds the horizon line, to stanch the sunlight’s spill.
The oak, it samples carefully of everything around,
From light, to dew upon the air, to microbes in the ground.
But though it recognizes all, it takes not all too close,
To prey of hawk a shelter, but to pests a poison dose.
To gaze upon an ancient oak, to feel a bit its shade,
That is enough to know of what nobility is made.
Poem for Poetry or Gift of Grab
Poetry
opens
my eyes
to see
between
fine lines
cracks
my cold
sealed-off
heart
to empathy
prizes
my balled
up fists
to grasp
a pen
to emulate
a poem’s
gift
of
grab.
the rain shook the tin roof this evenin’.
such a tease,
acting like a good cool breeze
and a partly cloudy kind of sunset
were following not far behind.
my tomatoes are thirsty
and so am i.
but the summer storm
rolled right on by.
headed out the gravel road,
bounced on to the next ridge over
and left me and the garden
still down here in the holler
aching for the rain.
the sky burned till it was black
and then it flashed
and sparked electric at me,
but heat lightning
never keeps its promises.
You have all the tools
To dismantle me,
But you choose
A constant state of maintenance
And upgrade.
When did
your political party
become more important
than children
sleeping in cages
and drowning in rivers
because they are afraid?
When did “refugee”
become a swear word?
Was it before
or after
your Christ
was crucified?
Why is it
that when voices
try to speak up
and rally the humanity
we once possessed
we are silenced
with mockery
and memes?
So I ask you again
when did your political parties
become more important
than
dead
children?
What I did today,
roaming in untamed
forest, was a reminder
of the magnitude and
beauty and power of
nature. Curling around
cliff lines, peaking
between enormous
fallen rocks, catching
drips and spiderwebs,
edging through
rhododendron, and
swishing along streams
opened up hidden depths
within me, long-forgotten
instincts ingrained through
generations of evolution.
We are made for this.
I often sit in wonder, but
there’s nothing like
immersing myself within
these wild green hills
off-trail, away from
humanity’s beaten path,
to imprint within my soul
deep awe and gratitude
that I exist at all.
