that's mrs. mediocrity to you

it’s not my soul i want to show you
though blue is never hard to find

not my heart that opens
petal by petal

nor an hourglass ticking beads
of broken glass and burnished
mirror

i lay on the ground and stare at sky
to see the everything of nothingness

but there is no cloud
to hang my string from
and i find
i don’t want to be tethered

i embrace eternity’s grace
even as it leaves me

barren

open

whole

i’ve moved past something
without even knowing i was turning

and if i lay here long enough
the sun will bleach my bones

i find this comforting

the dance that began in my feet
has found the window of my eyes

i let the music fly
sigh dry
cry high

this
is what i want you to hear

this is the year
i learned to sing

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night – join us!

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arms wide open

reach for the light

even when

it blinds you

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It’s a good year for the spiders. Actually, it’s a good year for all the insects, I’m fairly certain that ants and snails will be in charge of everything fairly soon. (Perhaps they already are). But there are also fireflies and dragonflies and damselflies and butterflies.

In general, I don’t spray anything in my garden, so I’ve learned to coexist with the pretty bugs and the ugly ones, the chewed up leaves and the ruined buds. I admit to using natural methods to try and control the ant hills in my flower beds, and there have been some attacks on wasps, because well, they’re wasps.

The birds are quite happy with the assortment of delectables, and the insects that eat other insects, well, they are my friends. So, yes, spiders are my friends. Praying Mantis are my friends. Ladybugs are my friends. Toads and frogs, though unrelated, are also my friends. Japanese Beetles, no matter how much they dress themselves up all pretty, are the enemy. Flies drive me insane.

So I will take an ugly old spider any old day. I never kill them, even when I find them inside (which is fairly often). Mostly, I just let them be, unless there is someone particularly squeamish around, and then I take them outside.

There’s something magical about a spider’s web. Something magical about watching one spin down from the ceiling on an almost invisible thread.

Of course, I’m quite certain I wouldn’t feel that way if I were a fly.

And when it happens right over my head as I lay in bed reading, well, okay, I admit, that’s a little creepy.

But yesterday was that kind of day.

(And no, I didn’t kill it.)

pretty pictures
telling prism stories
and so much gets lost
in lead and separation

everything you see
is colored
by comparison

complement and
analogy

pattern and shade

rendition and
supplication

you have to listen

the wind
seeps in
between pane
and crack

the truth
is always
in the whispers

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night – join us!

Already, I find myself taking green for granted.

It’s hot, hot out there, and the landscape has changed from the yellow green of spring to the grey green of summer.

I try to remind myself how much I will crave this green come February, but I also remind myself that human nature drives us forward–always, always–into what’s next. We have such a hard time standing in place and embracing what’s there before us.

I accept this as truth even as I try to change it. I pick bits of time from vine and branch, and savor them like wine. I remind myself how precious every moment is, but just like anything you have enough of, I assume there will always be one more. And another, and another and another.

I try to find the balance between my own pragmatic mind and the ticking of the clock.

And then some days I don’t think about any of this at all, because it’s summer, and really, all I need is to soak up some sunshine.

We are always growing, always setting seed, always reaching for the light. I don’t care so much about trying to control any of it any more, I am happy to just let it happen. I don’t take any path at all, I just wander towards whatever strikes my fancy, with dirty feet and blistered toes.

I always end up in the same place anyway, here, beneath this same old golden sun.

My green eyes match the horizon just now, and if you don’t look too hard, you might not even see me.

But I’ll be out there, wandering, until winter brings me home.

you were all there in scattered whisper
muted sob and rippled
memory

bells of heartache mixed with song
your joy and his sorrow
her hope and your disease

i remember thinking
this is what it’s like to be dead

not the silence i’d expected
but the everything
i’d never imagined

each sound was music
even the bitter tones and
burned out symphonies

i was the stage and you the actor
or you were the curtain and i
the applause

and everywhere
the stars kept dropping

each one a tiny hiss
upon my skin

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Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night – join us!

and now you walk bare shouldered
down a road that has no secret

no curve or twist to make you wander
as you form new blisters and
sweat gallons of yester
days
into this insatiable sand

the signs all say keep walking
and so you stop
drink air from empty pockets
wishing you’d remembered
the only book you’ve never read

and

the sun never was your friend
even though you held its warmth
on ten thousand days of skin
and horizon is the same
as ever after

your bones always knew
the way to cave and
dancing flame

but you passed by
the mouth of silence

screaming

beneath the sky

beneath the moon

stars and storms

bit and broken

sway and sidestep

hope and hollow

june and january

gold and glitter

arms waving

we dance

adaptation is the mother of sanity

you think i’m wrong hiding beneath
this blanket of light
absorbing everything you say

my shadow has hot, hard edges

nothing gets blurred from black to white
you are blue and i am syllable
stitched together by frustration’s empty needle

there is no breeze to humble this silence

and the sun creeps by in patterns
geese and ring, cabin and star
pieced-together stories left unread

we are puzzles in a frame of empathy

one day soon, it will rain again
wash us clean and bleed our colors together
until we’ll have to squint to define

the outlines of distinction

even as they fade

away

i hear your song
in the morning

an echo of night
and moon
and cassiopeia

i sit silently
listening

for ever

there is no time
in the sand
that pours
through your veins

but this music
keeps me

dancing