Yea, Though I Walk

Yea, Though I Walk

If I could lose this loss
By stealth or wealth or any way...
If raging, sounding winds could toss
At end of day,
This heavy void as if there were no cost,

Then I would count none lost.
But there is so much more to this:
I, miser, clutch at my pathos;
Abandoned bliss
Becomes the Desert That I Cannot Cross.

In Valley I am lost;
The blowing sands obscure my view.
The hole I hoard becomes my cross --
My crucifix.
I worship now the sorrow that was you.




This form poem was suggested by a Dante Gabriel Rossetti poem and encouraged by Imaginary Gardens for Real Toads on December 1. I've been wandering through this particular desert for a week or so. Better late than never...I think!

Three Cups of Tea

When I'm between poems, I like to write to prompts provided at a number of sites run by great poets. A recent Poetry Jam prompt says to use the title of a NY Times bestseller as a springboard. I chose Three Cups of Tea (or it chose me), maybe because its subject is education. In truth, I own the book but have not read it, so it was easy to go in a totally different direction.

Visit Poetry Jam to see what other people did with this one.

Three Cups of Tea

As if her knees
no longer hold,
suddenly, she sits.
Her arms fold
upon her work;
her head falls
upon her arms.
Her heart listens
to the sorrow
singing in the rings
upon the wood.

Loss

In the white
cotton quiet
amid the ragged
rise
and fall,
rise and fall,
your fingers write
memories
on counterpanes
in disappearing
ink.