Posts for June 1, 2022 (page 14)

You did not notice

The 9th year of my life on Memorial Day

How humidity clung to my ankles as I ran through the family graveyard

Batting away mosquitos from tanned skin

My hands gently sliding across the tops of headstones

Hoping I’d feel the spirits radiate their energy deep down in my bones

How I placed a Cracker Jack ruby ring on my papaw’s headstone

A man I have never known, but his stories connected me to a relationship I never had

Me hoping to see the shadow of an ancestor amongst the tree line

That dotted the property line

You never noticed how I connected to the wild

How my heart sung with the wind whistling amongst tree branches

Or how my heart never belonged

Along the cement walls of your church

The way my eyes followed ladybugs dancing along in the air

Me jealous of their freedom and purity

My connection to the gods and goddesses of nature

Being my spiritual awakening, my understanding of life and death

Not the coldness of an oak pew

Is that ring still there

I often wonder

Or did the spirits accept my gift

Smiling upon me as they watch

From blades of grass

Tops of trees

The clouds against mountaintops

Think of the power a gun-man holds
The power to kill
To intimidate
To show us all who’s boss.
Think of the pain that shoots out the barrel
The lives to end
The bottomless grief
A lost cause who causes more loss.
Think of the power a gun-maker holds
An issue that wedges
A senator bought
And militia men standing by.
Think of the struggle a voter must face
“I like little kids”
“I love my guns, though”
“That senator’s not a bad guy.”

The late dogwood blooms
float to the ground like snowflakes,
like one final frost.

Two pipes are filling a pool.
If the first one works two hours,
it fills a third of the pool.
The second can fill it on its own in three hours.
How many hours would it take –
for both pipes together –
to fill with verdancy
the pool of Spring.

Author: Marin Bodakov
Translator: Katerina Stoykova

Never once
has it been.

Never again.

So soon to pass.

It too, is infinite 
and therefore
cannot last.

Inhale your future.
Exhale your past.

Do your best.

Even if it hurts
to laugh.

Big shout, big echo.
Little shout, little echo.
Mankind cries out, God!
And gives a name, to the nameless.
No shout, no echo.
Silence and stillness, permeates all things.
The temple bell rings and awakens us.

rope in open palm-
broken limbs of arching sky
windless wasted ground.

To get out of my head, 
I climb into my bed,
I’ve read that instead,
I should…  

Take a walk and smell the roses,
Breathe and bend in yoga poses,
Journal out that childhood trauma,
Find a farm and pet a llama,
Perform an act that’s altruistic,
Chant Sanskrit like a mystic.

But each requires,
Either focus, pants, or map,
So I’ll just grab my cat,
And take a nap.

Write about Tragedy:

About sickness

about wars, about bullets

about what is broken

what was lost

what struggles

what (Who) is fallen

and laws.

Write about summer:

About breaths

filling

spaces within

the deck that’s held

You, in other seasons,

the Other

where you’re moving.

Remember.  Consider.  Dream

of years to come.

Write about Definition:

Forget vocation

become the ovation

embracing liminal space

then step

through.

Write about Wonder and Beauty:

About geese seen flying

returning, against

a sunrise

rising, against

darkness.

Imagine

Laws

and attraction

until the day

is redefined

by constellations

of freckles, each one

a mystery, a question

unanswered, a potential

that makes you forget

the laws

of

pasts or futures.

Write about:

What it means

to be alive.

me and rebecca went down past the barn
to where them pretty little purple flowers grow

we was making a bow K for momma
and was gonna give daddy one too 

rebecca said pull them up from the bottom
so i got right down to the dirt, and pulled

roots and all

i said rebecca these aint gonna grow
no more if we pull up the roots

rebecca said shut your mouth emily
and grab some more

that was when i felt the bite
and looked down at my hand

i seen a black bug like
a spider, but round, like a ball

i did not mean to, but i shook it
off my hand, and smashed it with the other

goo went everywhere and the side
of my hand was black and goo

that was when i first felt the itch
so i scratched

but the more i scratched, the more
i itched until i was going crazy

me and rebecca run to momma in the kitchen
and gave her the flowers

i showed her my hand and she run it under the sink
then put a cream on it and pat it dry

momma said thank you girls for the flowers
where did you get them

rebecca said down by the barn and
emily pulled them up by the roots

momma got real mad and sent me 
to my room and i stayed there till supper

thinking about that bug and how sorry i was and how i ripped
its home right out of the earth and then smushed it

rebecca come in my room at supper time
to tell me to wash up

my momma washed my hands good that morning
but i could still see little black bug legs and guts

i reckon some things don’t wash off that easy