that's mrs. mediocrity to you

I went outside last night at dusk and the grass was already covered in dew and it took me right back to my childhood, when I was always barefoot. There was a strip of red sitting on the horizon, a perfect half moon just clearing the trees, and I walked to the end of my driveway to look out across the fields.

I love living in farm country, love this spot on this hill, love the “sheltering sky” that defines my world.

It was a very busy day in a very busy week, and I’d barely looked up from the work at hand all day. And today will be the same. But I had that moment, out looking for my naughty kitten, when life caught my eye.

Funny how easy it is to forget to notice. And how simple it is to remember.

I just had to look up.

There is food growing all around me. Stars peeking out from behind day’s curtain. Eternity stretching out above me as a grasshopper jumps into my path.

The cat was nowhere to be seen, but I knew he was watching. He wasn’t ready to go inside yet and I couldn’t blame him.

He knows exactly how to live.

all your flaws are evidence of irony

mother nature has a sense of humor
but also, a quick temper

she sends flowers as apology on a regular basis

you have to cut your own path in the forest of existence,
with a quick-sharp, heart-forged machete

courage is your metronome and
labyrinth is another word for learn

live lost and laugh at life’s thunder

the sky remembers every flash of lightning

earth is just a pattern of old scars
hiding shy beneath a veil of tattered stars

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she wore crinoline and ruffles
tacked on with sap and honey

earrings made from dewdrops
and a necklace of morning glory vine

(each leaf a green heart of forgiveness)

she danced with the whirl and the twirl
of a long lost travelling gypsy

(which is to say she was barefoot)

and the music called forth
by the bells on her ankles
echoed throughout the hall

and the prince
(oh, the prince!)
how he carried a shoe
on a satin-faced
sleep-wrinkled pillow

offered up with a bow
and a deeply felt flourish
and (of course)
the perfect fit

but she’d already chosen

the sky as her lover

the moon as her (k)night

and so,
in the end

she sipped champagne
from the toe
of a willow bark slipper

raised her arms
with a smile

and invited
each and every
singing soldier
painted lady
purple wallflower

to tango
a path to the door

and her dance card
left behind

(with gratitude)

became a blank-faced
notebook

of possibility

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i want to be left by the side of the road
ash to splash and leave my mark
on the side of each car passing by

or can-kicked down a street
filled with knees and laughing children
my voice fading in the breeze of lost giggles

dust me from your shoes and purse your lips
blow me off the shelf you keep your heart on
toss me out the door with yesterday’s crumbs

i want to be the song you cannot scrape
from the tip of your tongue and the dance
you bobble out when you think no one’s looking

spin spin spin into the white whirl of wind
as it carries scraps from home and everything
gets dropped in the laps of perfect strangers

remember nothing of the spoken and every measure
of the pattern our two heartbeats mixed and
melded and never forget the midnights

we hollowed out with hands digging and feet
kicking life further back down the hill

if you have a box i want you to burn it
sit by the pyre and warm your crackled shins
listen to the howls in the cold dark behind you

and kiss the moon for me, just once
when she comes to light your way

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Linking in over at dVersePoets for Poetics today,
Marina asks some questions that will really make you think.
Join us!

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i always knew you could sing

your very existence is music,
wind rustles and breeze whispers
howls of moan and humming creak

i hear you finger tapping tunes
in the night of dark glass
against the cold window between us

i always knew it was you
absorbing years and belting them
back out as harmonized sustenance

as a teenager i would run to you
cry on your rough-cloaked shoulder
while you plucked my brokenheart strings

you always listened and i always remembered
to look up into the green gold eyes
of  your long standing deep rooted ballad

to find the leaf of your only regret:
your eternal inability to waltz
in the wallflower forest of forgotten

i’d stand up then, arms placed just so
on the shoulders of a stand-in barkcloth partner
and box step through the shade

of your resonant silence

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This poem was inspired by THIS video I came across featuring music
that was created from the rings in a slice of tree trunk, it’s enchanting.

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Also linking in over at dVersePoets for Poetics, join us!

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beliefs and baubles rain down
from a sky filled with numbers

and i have no cloak to offer

the skin i wear is my reality
broken hands and banged up knees

my gift is the soil scraped from nails

rich with worm and cross-hatched root
held down by your wing driven sky

nothing is wrong in the forest of calm

and i climb into the cave of bear
embrace the bones you’ve buried there

each icon wrapped in fields of feather

loose layers of tender revealed by touch
reflect the season of my eyes

as spring awaits the hunger of your cry

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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my brother taught the old mariner’s warning
to a chubby-cheeked freckled faced girl

i’ve learned since then that storms come in waves
and rose-colored daylight has no way of knowing
how dark the season of night was

fifty years went by before i gave up on midnight
and sat watching the sun creep through the trees
of my creak-boned obvious dreams

but pink isn’t red and the sun never rises
through a crimson ocean of clouds

light and deliverance can always be obscured
by a hand a blanket a curtain
or the cold blue mask of sorrow’s lost moon

the truth of each star is doused only by dawn
and the slow erasure of a secret last dance
from a card filled with yesterday’s dresses

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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no ceiling high enough
no walls confine enough

contain me
restrain me

if you can

explain me

i will not falter
in my worship
of your eternity

i will not paint you
taint you
saint you

or ever
embrace you

word keeper
star weaver
wind teaser

mind flight
expansive
wing-teacher

forever’s
cerulean eye

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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last night i slept in the forest of persistence
ragged tent and grey-mashed hair rippling
in the breeze of days i’ve never seen

my bed was a hammock of loss and my face
was hidden in veils of regret

but i kept one hand hanging free

at midnight the wolves set their howls
to the tune of a white mandolin

i watched the dance of forgotten flesh
fingers tapping with rapt indecision
and smiled at the harbinger’s dream

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

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i stand at the kitchen window long enough to grow roots

twisting down through the egg-cracked floor
into the fallible foundation of basement

this is my mirror and my afterlife and i know
i will haunt this place with my broad moon face
for seven wing-tipped generations

yet you taunt me with your hollow hope umbrage
moving through me as you glide overhead

my fingers the branch you choose to land on
though i never catch a wing or move a feather
and your song is more metaphor than melody

still, we know each other through this dark dirty pane
recognition confirmed by the silver you drop

even as you know i will tarnish-change to black
just like you and your silhouette of hands cupped
life running down my white sketched arms

as this sink filled with mud overflows

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Linking in today over at dVersePoets for Open Link Night, join us!

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