Posts for June 11, 2024 (page 3)

Those nights on the porch
The lightning bugs
The frogs
The plastic Family Dollar chair that’s been passed down for generations
That look in her eyes
I don’t even remember if we talked
The silence was prevalent
The smoke from her cigarette floated off
She’s a teenager
I’m a little kid
I waller on the old wooden couch rocker
I pet my dogs
I hope she changes the world
Everybody’s wrong about her
But she ran away instead
I sit in the backseat
It’s dark
I transport to a midnight porch-sit
The bright yellow light, the old farmhouses siding
Then I hear
The muffled banter of threats, tears, confusion
I worry but I hope she escapes
They’re wrong about her
They always were

Imagine the world is no bigger
than a peephole—its diameter
eclipsed in your curious pupil.
What do you see, O god of the
unopened door? Can you make out
the square lights in poppyseed
windows, boats the size of safety pins
blown gently across the blue? And
what do you hear, so far away from
the restless hums and laughter,
the birdsong, bombs and beeping,
breathing machines connecting minds
in their absence? What sound rises
above it all? Prayer? Anguish? Silent
goodbyes that take years to say? 
And if you blink, does that count
as a day—sun folded between eyelashes,
shattered moon floating in a glass gray
iris. Pressed against the convex lens,
humanity must be a distorted image.
Little wonder, then, no answer comes,
despite the knocking.

I’ve tried to shed this skin I’m in
Time and time again
It grows back, thicker
It grows back, stronger than ever before.
One day, maybe someday soon,
I’ll bid my farewells to this shell I live in.
I’m always reaching.
I’m always searching.
Longing for something here.
One day, I’ll believe it was worth the time.
Worth every ounce of happiness, loneliness,
the regrets,
the anger,
the fears.
Worth all the pain, and all the love,
excitement,
disappointment,
and tears.
I’m waiting.
Patiently I lay here and rest my head.
I’m waiting.
No longer unsatisfied with this life I’ve lead.
I can almost see it.
Just beyond the months, the time.
I can almost feel it.
Retracing the memories in mind.
I’m waiting.

I lay on the table,

breathing deeply,

probably more calmly

than the last time I was here.

Not that I dread the pain any less.

I want the relief

but not the process to get there.

The shape of relief

can be many different things:

a doctor who is knowledgeable

and gentle,

the news that surgery is not needed,

a more powerful medicine,

a promise of healing

in weeks,

sooner than later,

an afternoon with my girlfriend

eating pizza and playing Pokémon

and breathing easily.

I feared the fleeting sunshine
gleaming in the high tree branches—

Sunday’s final hours slowly wrung
out beneath the churning Earth.

School meant burned-out teachers’
glazed eyes ignoring cruelties.

Laying chips on my turkey sandwich
alone in the library’s AV room, in the back,

hunched over dusty, fallen piles
of LIFE, and long-dormant film cameras.

Even today, my stomach still churns a bit,
when I see Sunday sunlight in the treetops.

fed’rals bring pregnant
prisoners to the clinic
I get my meds at

Don’t you know the lightning bugs
make me think of you?
The way they rise up out of bushes
just as dew kisses grass to flash
signals across the yard
trying to catch some love.

Don’t you know it’s impossible
not to remember every summer night
growing up how I’d catch Mason jars full,
but then feel sad and let them all go before bed?
And how every year you smile when
I tell this same story.

Don’t you know the inky tree limbs
reaching out across the fading sky
still look the same? Like lanky hands
hugged by hills as dark encases them,
like when we’d wrap up in quilts across
the ground to watch stars when we first met.

Don’t you know seeing our kids
run in circles through fields,
pops of light glowing in their hands,
laughter woven into a chorus of frogs
has been one of my greatest joys?
They grow taller and steadier
just as these roots we’ve planted grow deeper,
and I can’t help but feel the years ache under my skin.

Don’t you know I’ll always have
a fondness for these moments in between
this day and the next?
Those are the ones that stick,
clinging to the sweetness of what is,
but anticipating what is yet to be.
It’s the delight and the hope
blinking away pain, holding onto love.

Eight years ago I saved a scrawny black kitten 
Outside of a store when I used to work in town.
Brought her home in a flimsy, cardboard box 
Big green eyes staring up at me as we drove to
The place that would be her new forever home.

Eight years of loving this silly cat, who is far 
From the scraggly baby she was that October.
A Halloween kitty that stole my horror loving
Heart right out of my chest. She’s now indoors
Taking up space on the couch and the bed, and
I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.
Sometimes I think that Miss Kitty Russell and I?
We saved each other, you know.

I look at you now and hear a song I could never play.
A poem I don’t know how to write jumps off my tongue
like a miracle of a fish off a diving board, but oh,
I used to write you buckets

of lines that almost said what I meant,
buckets of words that nearly cooled the fire
that made me want to leap out of myself into you, buckets
of words, letting them pour across

all the parts of you my hands desired but
didn’t dare to touch, pouring across your skin
which sang to me, flute to snake, a promise to bridge
the space between us as I prayed

that I wouldn’t drown in my own buckets
of sweat because seeing you felt like eating spicy food,
that I wouldn’t lose you for want, for desperate want of
a bridge or a boat.

I’m in my 50’s and I’ve never grown a garden, never attempted to, never thought I could.  

Food insecurity motivated me to buy my 1st seeds.  I knew ABSOLUTELY nothing about growing plants, vegetables or herbs.  I STILL consider myself a novice, but, I promise, the longer I do this, the more I learn and I’m ABSOLUTELY fascinated and IN LOVE with this journey and the lessons!

1). Plants are a lot like people…they come in all different shapes and sizes!

2). Plants are ALOT like women and children… they THRIVE off attention!
3). Different plants need different nutrients in order to live their best lives!
4) Plants remind me of Black people.  They can grow and THRIVE in the HARSHEST conditions!  I have added old dirt to my compost thinking I killed a plant- remember, I’m a 1st time gardener- and, weeks later, I see seedlings popping up in my compost!
5) Plants remind me that ALL THINGS (dirt, wind, rain, storms and sunshine) work TOGETHER for GOOD (bountiful harvest of fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs!) Romans 8:28-