Posts for June 4, 2025 (page 6)

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I put up two feeders.
Soon there were six more hummers,
fighting like children.
 

We thought a simple life,
 a small cabin after months in
 a canvas tent, heating with  
 cedar wood during the burst
 of winter cold
would somehow change the world
to create peace.  

We thought a down to earth   
 spill of sweet well water    
 located behind the wisteria     
 and dry stacked stone fence
would keep us drenched in grace
and pull the arc of justice
to wash away sins.

We thought planting and harvesting
 our own food and  
 cultivating herbs, free roam
 chickens and caring    
 for the land
would sustain us indefinitely
and nourish our childrens spirits.  

We thought each day, a    
 healing carousel of change and
 community
 propelled by perpetual beliefs in    
 motion aligned with the earth’s spin
would save us from the dark
recesses of injustice.

Some days
you write the poem.

Some days the poem
writes you.

Some days you
are
write
nothing.

Every day
the poem awaits.

I wasn’t certain about much 
three years ago
I was spreading my freshly developed wings
jumping off anything remotely high
puffing out my chest with every landing

I knew who I thought I was
the rest of the world did not concern me
I was certain I could make it work in my accord

I was certain that certainty was not a concern for me
so ready to fly

I’ve kept my head above water since then
swimming in the waves Icarus died in

every now and then I catch a glimpse 
from a heightened view

every once in a while
my wings will spread

but they are asking me to jump from higher cliffs now
and I cannot tell if the water will save me

still young enough for confidence
now old enough to fear

There is strength in waking.
Simplicity in the idea of the act,
but insurmountable in execution;
taking every ounce of you
to escape slumber’s alluring song.
Stretch, push, claw, open
as a cat in the midst of waking
just to cozy up again
and fall back into the rhythm
of her song,
for it is so much easier
to listen and drift away
than to awake
to the uncertain promises
of miser reality.

underneath the crust of spring.
I reckon years ago somebody
lost it, swatting at some bee
sipping at the tight, bright button
of a zinnia just before it bloomed.
Popped it right off.
Then every spring turning
the mulch to tender it all up
for lilies, cosmos, coreopsis,
that button folded down and down,
halfway to China,
that’s what we would say,
digging in our mother’s garden,
longing for adventure as she
was longing for a kind of beauty
in our buttoned-up backyard.
And now this button in my own,
its color worn away to dirt.
Still, I like to picture her,
whoever she might be,
gloved hands like mine upon a trowel.
Maybe in the autumn, planting bulbs
for spring, her old waxed jacket
fraying at the hem, and now
I’ve lost a button, too, she’ll say,
to no one in particular.
Here it is, I answer.

White roses grew 
from mountain earth 
behind my Mamaw’s home. 
She sighed, they bloomed too few.
But still, I found them worth 
the plucking. I strayed to roam 

through grapevines, tall oaks, 
hillsides wrapped in briars, 
dirty hands full of forbidden flowers. 
Mamaw yelled to my folks, 
unable to dim my childlike desires. 
I sat with painted water for hours

waiting for chosen roses to color.
Purple—Mama’s favorite. 
I gifted her my happy mess, smile wide. 
Blind to how life fades duller.
Blind to how I should savor it.
Blind to how things collide.  

Mama kept dead flowers in a fresh mason jar,
dark and wilted, like her swollen hand.
A single waterlogged stem. 
Mama would say, “Look how sweet these are.”
She only knew love, could not understand 
even dead things will thirst if you let them.  

trust for duskfall

Legs on top of your thighs
Head rests on your shoulder
I close my eyes to be
in the moment
“I love you”
Tickles my tounge
Yet I still keep my lips shut
Tell me about your book
Wish we were them instead
Push me off your thighs
Pray you don’t hear my sighs
Sit up and lock eyes
Please just hold me

The black, tortoise-shell cat pads the train car aisle, side-eyes Cowboy and purrs.