Monday, March 31, 2014

Me, You, Mockingbird

Much Madness is divinest Sense to a discerning Eye ~ Emily Dickenson

Sometimes a poem means just what it means. This is inspired by the Wordle of We Write Poems, a play with sound and sense.



Somewhere 
in the Madness Woods,
across the Rabbit Blue 
far beyond the Melting Wind,

"You, me, Mockingbird."

It teases life again, 
faint and growing thin:

Me, 
       You, 
            Mockingbird.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Caterpillars drop from trees

Photo of African Emprer Moth caterpillar taken by Lillian Reddy; borrowed from (and poem inspired by) Kerry O'Connor and Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads


Caterpillars drop 
             From trees,
                Curled with hope
                          And possibility.
                            Watch your tread;
                             Even one less
                          Is one too many.
                      Even one moth
                  Less is chaos, 
              A kingdom
Of infinite loss.

Friday, March 14, 2014

After


AFTER



After, suddenly, 
                     
silence.

Cotton in the ears,

underwater bottom 

quiet.

Stopped clock, 

empty house,
                    
Absence quiet.

Transcendent, ascendant

chrysalis quiet.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

On being a poet




On being a poet 

It's awful, having nothing to say,
To sit silent like a toad,
Breathing in and breathing out.

Yet how pleased he seems
To sit, sun and shadows,
Breeze to stir the reeds.

Look how his sides heave,
A bellows of deep rhythms.
Nothing in the bright bead eyes

Of shame or want. No whipping 
For missed flies, regret or condemnation.
Only is. Only am. Only he,

Uncensored by his mind,
Free to breathe. Little Buddha, 
Free to be.