NaPoWriMo Day 30...Yet

My minimalist poem...

Yet

NaPoWriMo Day 29...Meditations

I followed the prompt and decided to do my own meditations...

Meditations

1. 

The banks of the Connecticut are a zipper that’s been unzipped. The trees on the edge of the river lean into the water as if they still are thirsty after all of this rain. Their roots unzip from the watered earth. The river wants to flood over the interstate, to move above the tree line, the line we never thought would break. 

2.  

A carcass smeared on the freeway on the white dotted line between two lanes. Rib cage and wet fur exposed, a death-gash the size of one of those dotted lines. Correction, most people would guess a white dotted line is two feet in length, but the white dotted line is 10 feet long. The carcass couldn’t make up his mind, he didn’t want to go to the other side. Our lives perforated like the white lines—longer than we expect—such thin membranes to keep us moving from one lane to the next, from life to death. 

3. 

I drive from point A to point B and then point B to A and then repeat. And repeat, and repeat. I drive fast. Fast is expected as there are many repetitions and the foot is heaviest when it is on the accelerator, not on the brakes. And the heaviest point is the heart which has a direct emotional connection to the right foot. When the heart is heaviest, the foot turns to lead. Yet, I let up on the gas when I remember there is a sun rise outside my driver’s side window. I watch it flood onto the river and overflow its many shades of light. I want to make an unplanned stop at point C. I want to pull over onto the shoulder and brave the speed of oncoming traffic. I want to stop. But I am driving to point B and then I’ll have to drive to point A and all of it is more important than enjoying point C. 

NaPoWriMo Day 28...River

My meta poem...

River

Writing a poem is like a kayaker who's lost her paddle

given up control over the current

given into the unknown rapids.

Let them take you where you will be taken,

trust that they will not tear you asunder

but deposit you on the wise shore.

NaPoWriMo Day 27...An Elegy

Followed the prompt with 9 minutes to spare until midnight! I chose the very first sonnet in Shakespeare's "The Sonnets" on Gutenberg.org to create my own sonnet similar but different than the original.

An Elegy

Time consumed and a life wasted, a gravestone

Given to the fool who believed he could live

By his own means without a love to bind him.

No one will earmark his place in this life,

Who did he leave behind to remember him?

His marble halls, his golden crown left barren.

No amount of money gathered can stop death.

No amount of words recorded in a book

Can record flesh and bone, the scent of his hair.

He is undone; no heir of his blood remains.

He never named a woman with his surname.

No child greeted him or called him father.

He was born without desire to create,

His purpose shrivels like a wintered rose.

NaPoWriMo Day 26...Grandparents

My repetition poem...

Grandparents

Some little girl has four grandparents, 

their wrinkled hands and double chins, 

their rocking chair routines. 

Some little girl has a grandmother

who bakes everything from scratch, 

dips coconut balls into waxed chocolate. 

Some little girl hugs her grandfather, 

sits on his lap and plays with the loose 

skin on his face and gullet. 

Some little girl watches her grandparent’s habits,

coffee, newspaper, pencil, crossword puzzle,

water the plants, boil the oatmeal.

Some little girl sits at the dining table,

arms crossed over her chest 

shaking her head, refusing the oatmeal. 

Some little girl has two grandparents, 

but every little girl has at least four 

at one point. 

Some little girl smells their dry papery skin, 

their wrinkles taste of stale crackers,

their bathrooms reek of urine. 

Some little girl tells her mother, 

“I don’t want to go. I don’t like it there. 

I don’t even know her.” 

Some little girl goes to the elder home

and finds a shadow in the corner of the room,

staring with eyes made of blue stained glass. 

Some little girl has ghosts who she talks to 

in the night when she remembers 

music, a piano being played, a distant voice. 

Some little girl remembers cigarettes,

him standing on the porch underneath the eaves, 

his aged body soaking in the sunset as if it were his last. 

Some little girl has distant grandparents,

ones she’s never met, ones that never send a present, 

a card, ones that never cared enough. 

Some little girl built grandparents out of stories 

that her parents tell, as if each memory

was a piece of wood to craft a leg, an arm, a face, a throat. 

Some little girl has a grandmother 

that does not hug, instead she gives large spaces 

and words left unsaid. 

Some little girl craves to curl 

her heart into a fist, 

to harden it like a stone. 

Some little girl visits her grandmother in a funeral home, 

in a mausoleum, in the casket, in the dress

that she wore to the park that one spring day. 

Some little girl remembers a man

bent over his oxygen tank,

plastic mask hiding his aging face.

NaPoWriMo Day 25...The Ballad of Spring

The Ballad of Spring

fresh earth, rich rains

bring forth the sweet brown

grass seed, branches and buds pushing

eager into the world like a newborn

that smell, that smell, delicious earth

a bowl of spring broth wet

steaming up up

on the rivers and on the lakes

beauty ferments and greens

into the flux of life,

the hand digging soil

earth beneathe fingernails,

the ecstatic shutter of petals

slots and brushes of color

surrounded by green green green

the bees buzz from one cherry blossom 

to the next their wings and bodies heavy

with their yellow-sun labor

the rhubarb extends its thick stalk,

marbled crimson and emerald,

like an arm offered, who will
dance to the ballad of spring?

NaPoWriMo Day 24...Titanium

I opened my synonym book to a wonderful page that began with 'coalesce'. It's become a new favorite word. Also, I had to get a little nerdy and use some work vernacular...Also, fun fact, did you know that when heat above 600 degrees C is applied to titanium that it will ignite, and nothing can stop its burn?

Titanium 

We are titanium 

strong, unyielding 

but it took us  

through sponge 

and weld fire, 

white hot arc, 

for us to coalesce. 

It took us years  

to find our elements 

co-mingled, but now 

together we forge 

new patterns 

tempered. 

Our bodies burned  

into the furnace 

fire and pressure, 

we ignite 

as if our bodies 

held starlight. 

NaPoWriMo Day 23...The Fox

My animal poem is about a fox I encountered on my daily walk back in Washington State. I've long pondered our meeting, and how long he watched me from the road. How did I appear? As a fool or as prey? Oblivious to the natural world?

The Fox 

Naïve to set my shoes on his path 

where his paws touched the earth, 

where he hunted the vole under the brambles. 

I ignored the scat, so obviously placed, 

and the burnt orange fur clipped by thorns, 

or his small tracks, precise and neat. 

I am fool enough to think he stumbled on me; 

deaf and bumbling, I stumbled on him. 

How long he watched me as I moved 

loud and thoughtless, a merry-go-round. 

He watched me with his careful eyes, 

as if he too considered me easy prey, 

a mouse or marmot he could sink his teeth 

until he got bored and flashed in front of me, 

crossed the road and paused for one second, 

glanced over his muscular shoulder 

and then deemed me unworthy.