Day 4 - 30 poems in 30 days

When Words Fail

 

You are the red bandana

tied around my mouth,

so it can’t talk about hands,

yours and mine.

 

I am a dry fountain pen

thirsty for ink,

for morning and night,

for everywhere between.

 

We are rocks

tumbling in the riverbed,

smoothing ourselves

to lie in quiet in other laps.

 

Where will our feet land

after the days of rain,

after our daily bread,

after everyone else is gone?

Day 3 - 30 poems in 30 days

Small Bend In the Road – Unincorporated

 

Five days a week I drive the same highway

east in morning, west in evening

but today is Friday – I’m working from home

and I miss that speck on the map

named Thursday, West Virginia.

 

It’s just a building now,

pale green frames around

two windows and the door,

bright green awning across the

porch that spans the front.

 

A bench still waits

below the right window,

big boards beneath the left,

as if repairs are to be made,

as if this might someday be more.

 

What’s is like to always live in Thursday,

perpetually stuck in day five?

No Monday, Saturday, no day of rest,

always waiting for what is to come,

knowing only what was, is past.

 

Is there a lesson here?

Is this the birth of mindfulness,

of being in the present?

Is this where the guru of meditation

waits for each of us?

What The Heavens Know

 

How often we forget.

While it waits, patient

as dark molasses

for December biscuits

that rise and brown

in hot ovens.

 

That public sky

above our daily tasks,

watches us spin

and turn in turbulence

as we invent new stories,

new myths to fit our lives.

 

Before molten memory,

gods and goddesses

filled with lust,

stirred the cosmos.

Fought their wars,

birthed other deities.

 

Listen, this firmament

has old, old tales to tell.

How we rose from water;

How elements of stars fell

formed bones, scales, flesh;

How something walked

across this land.

 

In the shadow of deep night

sometimes we pause,

maybe we pray,

maybe we praise.

Maybe we remember

why the sea forever calls us.

2015 - 30 poems in 30 days

To Travel A Two-Lane West Virginia Road

 

Early April, headed East

sounds           so glorious

at 6:30 AM, while

everything is still dark;

raucous bird songs

thick in your ears;

a little dew or even

frost on the windshield.

 

To drive into morning

is not what you expect.

Oh, it begins – lovely,

light stalks the air, slow

as that tabby after a field mouse;

Colors bloom, leisurely

as those July morning glories

on the old porch trellis.

 

But you have forgotten,

in this dawn with no clouds,

that the sun does rise.

You top the hill – there she is

blindingly beautiful!

You can’t see the road, other cars,

or the big bronze Guernsey

on the berm of the road.