Words x People x Time

Unfixed language churns its roiling 
boil of people talking typing 
taking liberties mistaking 
mix-and-matching patching coiling 
words around each other breaking 
down and cooking up enhancing 
some words dulling others rising 
out of bubbling chaos meaning.

#NaPoWriMo 8/30

From seed to seed

In high school biology, my teacher planted seeds. 
They didn’t all grow, naturally, 
but mine by chance was sown deep, 

and I tended to it daily: 
I read it countless books, 
I told it all the things I’d learned, 
I asked around how best to fertilize it, 
and let that advice bloom freely 

and so here we are ten years later 
my seed a jaunty sapling still filled 
with all the optimism I’d poured over it 
begging me to take its seeds and shower them 
from coast to coast and perhaps even farther
and hope for even more 
seeds and more 
saplings, more 
trees and more 
teachers. 

So perhaps, when this storm passes 
as storms do 
there will be some forests left standing 
and perhaps 
a few of those trees will be mine 
to nurture 
to let go to let grow on their own. 

#NaPoWriMo 7/30

Two Haiku

this forest’s birdsong 
harmonizing one moment 
raucous the next 

to watch from the shore 
wind and sun play on the waves 
a firework display

#NaPoWriMo 6/30 

Woven Sense

First comes lavender
quarantined by cotton seams in plush pockets
yet lavishing the room in an incense of spring

just as the patchwork colors seem to seep
beyond the quilt’s confines into every corner.
The fabric breathes in, the fibers stretch out
under the warmth of the window-framed sun.

Last come memories
slow to wake from their multicolored beds
where they were laid to rest and stitched in place

one by one, eight by eight distinct
squares snatched from time over years,
over decades passed by wonder and boredom
and caught together in this continuous lattice.

#NaPoWriMo 5/30

Spring, do your thing!

daffodils bobbing their butter-yellow heads
looking up to the sun that raised them

pussywillows swaying in billowing winds
white cushions pushed out of dark branches

wildflowers dancing in bold flowy ball gowns
like sunset islands in a green sea

#NaPoWriMo 4/30

A Wandering Smile

One of the signs outside your door screams “NO VISITORS”
so I find only silence keeping you company.
Delirium stalks you, frail and stranded from your herd,
the vulnerability of illness compounded
by the ball and chain of loneliness and seclusion.

My smile wants to let you know that I am here for you
but it cannot get past my polypropylene mask;
it wanders up and down searching for a way to you
from my eyes to your eyes
                                               through a plane of plastic
from my hand to your hand
                                                  through a layer of latex
buzzing by my vocal cords to reach your empty ears
in small words floating through the filtered air between us.

#NaPoWriMo 3/30

Reasonable people may disagree

on this issue which is to say 
that in the minestrone soup of 
life there swim at least some morsels 
whose value may be a matter of taste

not to worry we can agree to agree 
that we‘ll never agree on whether 
the beans are more integral than the pasta 
to its quintessential flavor 

and in our spare time we may disagree 
unreasonably on anything we wish 
for we agree variety is the spice of life 
but minestrone mustn’t be too spicy

#NaPoWriMo 2/30