it’s interesting
the conflict
otherwise known as push and pull
what makes someone ecstatic
causes another turmoil
hired, fired
divorced, engaged
messaged, ghosted
perhaps it’s not always so extreme
but I see, day to day
that which brings one person joy
often annoys me or a colleague or some random bystander
beauty is in the eyes
not all beholders are gardeners
outcomes vary depending on perspective
wear
green and yellow to
couch a story
of beauty shining.
Listen
transfixed,
a receptacle
of
silence.
Leaf
out
like a child, slay
any
available
moment.
~ An erasure of Elizabeth Strout’s novel Tell Me Everything, pg. 324-5
What is it about creeks,
running flat and clear
that calms the mind
and fills the soul?
Where rivers are cultures
and streams are lifetimes
creeks are seasons
that shift and flow.
My first creek said, Come!
No need to knock or
wipe your feet. This
is our own place.
And during each new meet
like an eager love
it played with light
and shared its bed.
When winter came, it froze,
unable to speak,
only stare with
its frigid face.
I left it—no farewell.
My parents’ marriage
had flooded its
banks, thus altered,
requiring us to go
south, where the ocean
swallows rivers
that consume streams
that summon the creeks,
expecting lax service
from such shallow
quiet waters.
I now live in Midway
where the Lee’s Branch
nestles under
quarry grown trees.
When the world, as Wordsworth
said, is too much with
me, I visit
trusting its truth:
This is our time
and all is right
right now.
A single, patient line, as you’d expect from her,
She lets the fern be a gesture, a wearable thing.
Here, the fern is both feminine and unconscious—
a sleep-dancer, already mythic.
It grows where names forget themselves,
where leaf-light slants through time like old glass.
No bloom, no boast. Only fractal unfurling—
a logic older than bees.
Victorians made reliquaries,
pressing silence between sheets of leaded air.
And still it curls,
still listens,
still does not answer
the bell of our days.
What hour is it in the understory?
What calendar keeps a dream in green?
hope
a fervent whispering plea as if a wish alone could set us free
it’s taken me ages decades to see
it is trust with feet forward
that let’s hope rest at the heart
tucked into a corner settled where it’s meant to reside
in the chest long worn and scarred
yet sturdy and capable of holding
this grand human shroud
I use a lot of religious references in this piece. If that is something that creates discomfort within you then this piece is not for you. -Thank you
it started with Emily–
“I think to Live—may be a Bliss”–
her words opening my mind
like a safecracker twisting the handle,
pulling the door,
revealing the treasures inside
now, it’s an every day thing–
especially in June–
clicking on names,
people-poems,
opening my mind
to receive transmission
signal strong. no decay.
over the years of viewing
poets and poems,
i have become convinced
of one truth:
the inner voice
is best left partially hidden,
elsewise, it may
burn through
the crust of the Earth,
spitting the rock
into shards of
may-have-beens.
The mother in summer wears shades
as if to say she has done this before,
Wears her human skin and paints her toenails
as if to say she goes here and in another life,
she might be fun, or something like it.
They go to the park, the pool, and it’s a little indecent,
she thinks privately, all this flesh,
but it’s nothing that wasn’t there before – just the crowd
in different phases of exposure.
She has heard that some feel this way in winter,
disappearing into darkness as she comes alive,
different broods of cicadas occasionally overlapping,
vibrating and screaming in turn.
