Lest We Forget
I do not forget the great comrade,
The wonder song of the morning bird,
And how night multiplies the seed of the sun.
Tag: photojournalism
A Mother to All Children
A Mother To All Children
She sits quiet in her beauty
Entering her room,
Like tea pouring from a kettle
Soft, warm light will lower shoulders.
History and piano lightly circulate
While her gentle voice soothes the weariest of bones.
A mother to all children.
She is hydration
And every little decoration
Is delicate.
Her tapestries rich,
Clothing a muted landscape
Holding her fleshy, full bodice –
Onlookers notice.
Is charity her name?
Is grace her vocation?
Relief is as effortless as breath.
Pure is the taste of her intimacy.
Sweet salvation and naturalness
Even the breeze can see
Taking pause by her window
To smell her air, sweetly.
This moonsong woman
Wildly and wonderfully bathing
In the complexity of her wildlife.
In her company, nature sighs.
And therein lies –
Hope.
Scraping Pavement
Scraping Pavement
There’s truth in these walls
songs in our sunsets and yet
we ask them to be repeated.
Declaring our strengths as listeners but
can you recite the birdsong melody
outside our window?
I can no longer draw inspiration
from my feet on the ground.
With a heart half-healed, and a fate
yet to be revealed,
the leaves scrape the pavement
like my dragging heels.
Remember Me
Remember Me
Sometimes I need to write.
To see words flow from my hands.
Disrupting the white paper with
My black, black ink.
It settles my stomach to see
It dry.
It’s there now – my words.
The message isn’t always important.
It could be a reminder or something more
Revealing like a love note.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is
The permanence.
Educated
Educated
The trees taught me how to whisper,
While the clouds showed me grace.
The sweet little fawn liked carrots, like I did
And the birds were the ones that told me to fly away.
Tiptoeing on pine needles,
I asked to befriend the crickets
So they would let me lay with them at night.
But eventually, the blossoms had to bid me goodbye
As I kissed my last dragonfly,
The one that sat on top of the cattail
By my family’s old pond.
The one I would plunge into to scream or cry
And on my way out, soaking and wrecked
Would eat the blackberries that hid under the deck.
I used to hide too,
Under our soon-to-be Christmas trees
That lined my family’s property.
Those old woods feel haunted to me now.
A grown woman staring at grass
And all the memories that have now come to pass.
The streams all dried up.
The light dimmer than it was,
Calling it home, just because.
Nostalgia smells different to a girl like me.
What I lacked in lullabies and story time
What I may have missed from board games and birthdays
I was given.
I was given countless kisses from the rain
And tickles from the leaves
An imagination on fire.
Nature gave me the gift of listening
She warmed me with her blanket of sun
And granted me a life being forever young.
When we live among giants,
Like the great eastern white pines of Michigan
How can we feel like we do not have teachers?
The rings of their age
Their wisdom and their sage
They are the religion,
Our most literate preachers.
For my next breath, I will have the space to look up
The seeds are planted, and my roots are deep
For the sky reminds me to be big.
It Is All For You
It Is All For You
It’s just you in this field,
But I’m here too.
You breathe me in
And don’t even notice.
Your words drift on my wind
As your hands graze my grasslands
But your eyes look past my mountains.
My birds sing for you
And my branches always reach out
Asking only for footsteps in return,
I’ll give you all of me.
I Am A Woman For You
I Am a Woman For You
I had a dream about you
We were walking down the street
As we always did,
As we always do,
In my memories of you.
We were friends,
Once friends,
And you spoke to me
About your body
With self-deprecating cruelty.
Sharp my lungs
As I faced you
Pulled you
Into me so close
By the latch of your jeans
To prove a point of what I mean.
My hand began to reach up your shirt
You squirmed and became instantly alert
As my other hand
Wrapped around your neck.
Almost uncomfortable
Almost too comfortable.
I positioned my lips
A hairline away from your burning ear.
Burning to hear
Burning to be near.
As I spoke with conviction
Without any contradiction
And with a soft, feminine tone
That only increased the friction,
In the air, and simply everywhere.
“You are
Tirelessly,
Completely,
And unrelentingly
Desired.”
My hand drawing paths
Down your back.
Impatient to tour your hip
And as I turn my fair face
With my hair slightly out of place
And yours…
I continued,
“Everything about you,
From your hands,
To your heat,
Your chest,
Your smell, this skin,
And your mouth
Remind me that I am a woman.”
Waking up,
From this long-remembered dream
With peace in my bloodstream
Power in my pulse
And trembling my legs
Oh, to be a woman.
Beyond the Daydreams
Beyond the Daydreams
I want to see beyond the dreams
Share with him and share within
A gratitude for our coincidence.
And despite the restrictiveness
Our daughter requires innocence.
She needs us to take time
Sweet and merciful
Born from our patience.
Tasting truth on my tongue
And strawberries on his.
Poor little boy is afraid of falling
We are children making children
But my tender heart is calling.
I know your daydreams
As my light is learning you.
There is no fear in faith
And as we play, and as we pray
As we cry and move
In all the daily things we do,
We will learn a love that she deserves.
We will learn a love that we have waited for,
A remembrance of the peace before.
The space where breath is made.
Like nature or grace
It will come from an effortless place.
On that day, when my belly is full of life
And your hand is rested on our blooming flower
We won’t remember this waiting hour.
Our only thought,
I wonder what color her eyes will be?
It’s Not Black and White, It’s Gray
It’s Not Black and White, It’s Gray
Birds twirl in the sky like sheets of loose paper
As raindrops fall in the absence of my footsteps.
The clouds marbled and wispy
As I whisper,
That I’m wistful.
New trees arch toward their spotlight
While dewy kisses plant on my cheeks
From the darker side of the sky.
I like getting wet, getting muddy
The raw grit of the Earth.
Pour down in buckets
To cleanse and to coat
Leave me soaking and silent on this street.
I’m happy here, alone and cold with you.
I found the place you wanted me to,
Where it’s okay to be gray.
For just like the sky,
So am I.
You Are Stronger Than You Think
You Are Stronger Than You Think
When everything is quiet
And you’re nowhere to be found
I begin to blacken pages,
Writing to sages,
About girls in dresses
Walking alone in sunsets
And butterflies silhouetted by moonlight.
We’re all just homesick.
Touching trees and one another
Getting one step closer.
I’ll see you all there
But right now, I’m in repair.
I’m glad it’s warm out,
My sweat reminds me to release
With every breath, I feel a little more at peace.
I close my eyes and walk on ledges now.
My heart is louder than it used to be
Seeing rainbows on my skin previously unseen.
So go ahead little girl,
You have what you need in this world.
You want new words?
Then write to them.
Put jasmine in your hair
Gift love and lightning everywhere.
They might have stars on thars,
And you might have scars on yours
But Jesus, you are brave.
You never wanted normal anyways.
A pang of hunger and curiosity fit for a Queen.
So conquer, love harder and stand up in your dream.
Dance with your own shadow
Kiss your weak knees
Fill your lungs, wraps your hands, stretch your muscles that aren’t yet sore.
Look up to your home and say, “Please,”
“Give me more.”
Purpose and Prose 