that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i refuse to say

hang in my heart

on bits

of knotted thread

and wrinkled ribbon

swaying

in a barely moving breeze

wrought

from distilled smile

and cornered

memory

the super sweet blueberries dropped into oatmeal

the smell of lilacs, just outside an open window

a new loaf of bread popped in the oven

a robin, a cardinal, a chickadee

a messy house, a messy garden, a messy life

in need of sorting, cleaning, scrubbing, tending

waiting to be torn from disarray

and pasted back in perfect place

as i sit here

contemplating nothing

sipping tea

and mostly,

smiling

.

.

.

i let the dog out
and the moon was singing

down at the swamp
one thousand geese
honked the words
to a universal melody

polaris twinkled

guiding each of us

home

.

.

.

because what choice do we have

and besides
the sun made a rare appearance this morning
dishes needed washing
we need to eat

and

some days
it’s fair to say

i’m tired.

part of me thinks
revolution
is for the young

and we’re all just
spinning

waiting
acting
watching
fighting

for
another
day

to stand
or soar
or sit with it all

once more

.

.

.

I couldn’t sleep for weeks
and then I remembered that I needed to write.

Ariel was always a dream, but a wakeful one,
whispering pictures and posturing portent.

I don’t need to sing, my body
is always happy to do that for me.

There’s a fire burning inside me (literally)
at the same time there’s a fire
burning down the world.

I lay awake at night and rage at everything,
but in a peaceful way.

I eat grace for breakfast and anomaly for lunch.

Everything has too many calories.
Something else I have to burn.

I can only sleep when my feet are cool
and mine are scorching these sheets
like my mother’s old iron.

This room is never dark enough,
and I am never really here.

It doesn’t matter.

Matter is energy and I am combustible.
I float like a gas just south of the ceiling.

No one ever notices, which is funny.
Except when I get stuck in cobwebs.

I’ve lived in this house longer than I haven’t.
It’s small and tiny and we are always tripping over each other.

I trip over everything anyway.

It’s winter and I miss the sky.

The snow geese are down at the swamp screaming injustice.

On New Year’s Eve the fireworks gave them fits
and I smiled as I stood
alone in the center of road
as white sparks drifted down
like lost feathers.

.

.

.

i swallow purple and dream of bluebells
blanketing a field made of permanence

they put me under and i bleed in tandem
with color-blind heart
and restless fingers
tapping love songs to spiders
in starlit soliloquy

and we run
through red rivers
black oceans
dead forests

never out of breath
or short of currency

trailing ribbons
weaving knots
stitching sides

un
raveling

.

.

.

and the call of a sky turned crooked

on a day that grows dark like any other

the sun always rises

the sun always rises

the sun always rises

she hears the whispers in the leaves of the tall poplar trees

she has blisters from planting possibility

she is a storm raging gales of regret

she is silent and patient and sometimes

she bends

ever so slightly

towards a house

filled with reflection

and polished

glass

.

.

.

i’ve buried all the pieces no one ever gets to see

fickle fallow and everyday shallow
not enough coin inside oversized purse
cold confidence and chartreuse envy

and in between daisies
tiny fingers
of longing

in my garden i am always
over-exposed
and therefore
hidden

sun beat and wind burn
the torture of
bent back
long squat
digging
in the soil of silence

crows
are my charm
and for them
i leave glamour

gifts of
gilded bone and
beaded sinew

and we dance to the rhythm
of hidden heart broken start ritual
refusing to accept the blue bowl bright sky storm

raging just beneath the lost forget me not sea of invitation

.

.

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 9
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a combo of NaPoWriMo’s lines that scare you and PAD’s: hide-out.

.

this is not a poem and i am not my shadow

the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference

there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips

 perhaps there are no tulips

perhaps where i see purple you see green

perhaps this is skin and not plaster

there are no certainties

on this day

in this sun

or this room

with ghost shapes

dancing

but this is not a poem and

therefore none

are necessary

.

.

.

Folding grey in upon itself and shouting color back into the world.

I am listening for grace and finding bits and shards scattered in puddles of mud and the still deep pockets of winter’s coat.

Moving through hard things and surviving them.

Watching lines of geese form arrows of forgiveness. Connecting the dots, but lightly, in pencil, in case I want to start over. Drawing my way through a book named 2016.

Yesterday pretended to be summer and I spent the day with dirty hands and a warm, warm sun, as the mockingbird reinvented his own story. He tells me everything and I laugh in all the right places, knowing we need each other—performer and audience, though I’m never quite sure which is which.

I feel myself growing. Older and lighter, wiser and taller. Heavy-hearted and ever-surprised.

I think about compassion. I think about flowers. I think about endings and beginnings, comings and goings, cycles and seasons.

I think about flight and freedom. I think about the day when both become impossible.

Geese fill the air with a frenzied, raucous melody. Fighting for space and survival. Smoothing ruffled feathers and thinking about dinner, or gravity, or both.

The horizon is always an illusion, marking time on a map filled with moments.

I find my way with blind fingers and broken pencils.

I find a feather in the corner of redemption, and think how floating and falling are simply different speeds to the same destination.

I find benediction.

Here.

.

.

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