1. The boys playing together happily. (Thanks, Sandra, for the new Legos!)
2. A shift in the work: today poem-a-day becomes Prepare the Chapbook. Yay, editing!
3. Winter vegetables.
4. Good neighbors.
5. Not giving up even when you think it’s hopeless–see sweet Darius Donkey, below. He was supposed to become a horse, but his proportions were all wrong. I was going to throw him away, but Barbara said I should at least put in the stuffing and see what happens. I love Darius.
Poem-A-Day Prompt 30: Write about Milk. This is the last prompt of the month. I might take off a day or two before I get back into a poem-a-day groove, this time with my own prompts, perhaps.
Somewhere in the world, the milk is falling,
raining in great drops from benevolent heaven.
Cup your hands into a bowl.
Feel it splatter into your palms
and trickle through your fingers.
Wash your face in it.
Splash it over your eyes and you will see again.
Anoint your forehead and see further.
Pour it into the gaping wounds
where the frenzied creatures
of habit and risk, of anxiety and anger and hate
have gnawed at your insides.
Drink it in great gulps
and feel it soothe your weary voice.
Take it in, breathe it,
bathe in it.
Then lie back like a new babe,
and let it dribble from the corners of your mouth.
There will always be enough.
1. Jon Weaver-Kreider–he could be number one on every gratitude list I write.
2. The purposeful flap of that eagle over the farm and up the ridge yesterday.
3. Chipotle hot sauce on scrambled eggs.
4. Winsomeness. Isn’t that a great word?
5. Feathers
Namaste.
Day 29 Poem-A-Day Prompt: Write a Birth Poem.
We all came in through the same door.
The young ones just beginning to learn
what their bodies can do,
the new crones bidding the blood farewell.
And all those rounding bellies.
There were more of them than any of the others.
I sensed the wolf the moment I walked in the door.
I almost looked around to see her,
before I realized the shadow was my own.
Of course.
I stepped across the carpet
carefully toward the desk,
past the pair who sat together
with heads bowed in wonder
over the full bowl of her womb,
willing them not to look at me
lest they sense the blood on me,
lest some contagion contaminate
their innocent joy,
lest the wolf turn her face their way.
Me, I had walked this way before
with my strange and dark companion,
carrying my empty bowl.
I was only there for confirmation
this time. I knew what I had come to hear,
knew how to follow this particular path of grief.
Walking out again, afterward,
the fresh-faced ones were still there,
and the wolf and I again took pains
not to taint them with our shadow.
We left by the same door
and closed it quietly behind us.
1. Coming away from a funeral inspired to be a better person.
2. The eyes of my friends–sparkly, thoughtful, wise, twinkling, tear-filled, winsome, deep, compassionate. . .
3. Singing with my siblings.
4. That Moon and Jupiter last night.
5. Pancakes.
Namaste.
Poem-A-Day Day 27 Prompt: Two-fer Tuesday. Write a hero poem. Write a villain poem.
Which mantle shall I put on for this story?
I have the capacity for both,
for small-scale heroics, at least,
and for minor villainies, too.
Find yourself in the slough
and I’ll come to your rescue.
But two steps in another direction
and I might take you down.
We choose the one path,
but the other will often come to bear.
Even Fagin had a warmth.
Even Arthur had his secrets.
I’ll post the Poem-A Day poem later. Meanwhile, here’s a tanka:
I would stay indoors
were it not for seven hens.
Instead, bundled up
I step out into the snow
among the dancing bluebirds.
Poem-A-Day Day 26 Prompt: Write a Collection Poem about something you want to collect.
I want to collect titles, like the illustrious,
the megalotitulargrandmastermaniac himself,
Idi Amin Dada, His Excellency, President
for Life, Field Marshall Al Hadji,
you get the picture,
except he didn’t think you would,
so along with a collection of
interesting initials, he declared himself Lord
of all the Beasts of the Earth
and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror
of the British Emperor in General
and Uganda in Particular.
Yes, really.
Anyone who could greet him duly
must have passed out at his feet at the end
for very lack of breath.
Me, today I add to my title hoard
Conqueror of the Clutter
in One Small Corner of the House
in General, Queen of Two Cats
and a Flock of Grateful Chickens,
Field Harvester, and,
in this instance in particular,
Spewer of Grandiose Poetry.
You may bow now.
Poem-A-Day Day 25 Prompt: Write an Opposite Poem, a poem which is opposite to one which you have already written. Really tough challenge today.
I’ll sit with Uncle Walt in the hall of contradictions,
contain my multitudes or let them fly outwards.
Did I say that the heart was a circle,
a singularity, a unit, contained?
No, the heart is a line,
straight and unswerving,
connecting any two points.
The geometer says,
Begin with a single point.
Notice, over there, a second point
and mark it carefully with your pencil.
Holding your pencil on that point,
line up your ruler between them,
and draw your line tenderly.
And if you are like Billy Collins, or me,
and falling in love is something you do
constantly and willfully,
those lines will ray outward from your center
like a glorious web, encompassing the universe,
like a circle.
Poem-A-Day Day 24 Prompt: The title begins, “The Truth About ______”
When I said that I was transformed into a tree
perhaps it would have been more accurate
to say that I became a raven
my roots curling into claws
my branches melting into blackness
the rush of the dawn wind in my ears.
Did I say “roots” again? Pardon me.
My feet are roots, of course, when I am a tree,
but also when I am a rainbow.
Did you know? A rainbow has roots too
great arcing roots that mirror and reflect
their sky-form. The earth spectrum of the underworld.
When I am a rainbow, I am a perfect circle
holding the world in my colors.
It may be closer to the truth were I to say
that one fateful day I became a stone
and sank deeply into a stillness so profound
I could not hear even my jeweled heart
burning with the brilliant fire of the Earth.
I cannot recall what happened to my night-black wings
on the day I turned into a stone.
You may think it is not possible, not true,
that right now I am actually hearing you say, “But
a person does not simply turn into a tree
or a stone, into a rainbow or a bird.”
Now, see, I have told you your own thoughts
and you can feel free to be amazed.
But how can I not hear you
when you have become
the gentlest of breezes
and whispered your protest
with a smile
into my ear?
Mockingbird Chronicles 