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.

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.

After

AFTER

After, suddenly, 

                     

silence.

Cotton in the ears,

underwater bottom 

quiet.

Stopped clock, 

empty house,

                    

Absence quiet.

Transcendent, ascendant

chrysalis quiet.

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.