Category: Writings

Phoenix Without Fire – Re-write

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I will dream it first,

deathless reincarnation,

not me, but still me.

 

I will shed my skin

wiggle, slip, kick, and it’s gone

as I slide away.

 

I will rise again,

stretch newly fledged wings, and fly.

Phoenix without fire.

 

I took the original poem “Phoenix Without Fire” to our writing group and received some very helpful suggestions. The most obvious was that if it was ‘without fire’ where did the ‘ash’ in the last stanza come from. Lol.

I’ve done a rewrite incorporating this input (you’ll see the first and second stanza have traded places too). I think it’s really important to our growth as writers to be open to constructive suggestions offered by people we trust (that’s my writing group 🙂 )

 

The Book’s in the Mail (not a poem)

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The first shipment of “Falling Awake and other poems” is on its way. I didn’t think, after all the writing, and proofing, and editing etc… that I’d be so excited! But I am! Soon I will have a link for you if you would like to purchase the book.

Book launch coming up in November.  🙂

I’m already plotting about the next book…

H2Ode

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Dewdrops steam
Into a dream
of cloud ascension
‘til suspension
bursts the dam and sets them free.

Raindrops dripping,
splashing, stippling
pond and puddle
washing mud filled
tributaries to the sea,

tithe the tidal
aqueous idyll,
water grumbles,
roars and rumbles,
every form and size and shape

Flume and fountain,
spilling, spouting
torrents gush,
and rivers rush
to estuarial escape.

Waves come reaching
‘cross the beach and
claw the sand
with hungry hands,
draining freshet, rill, and runnel

salty, swollen
sated ocean
‘pon reflection
pays respect in
cloudy offerings to the sun.

Clouds grow heavy
break the levee
drown the world
with water swirling
downpour, outpour, rippling rain.

And in the first
refreshing burst
the raindrops strike
and start the cycle
tithe and tears and tithe again.

Doing the Math

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I have spent half of my life
with you
though it feels
alternately like a moment or
an eternity.
One more reason why I know time
cannot be linear or lineal,
cannot be real or relevant.
In retrospect it seems less
amazing that I’ve spent
half of my life with you
than that I spent half of my life anywhere else.

The Man Who has Everything

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What do I give to the man who has everything?
A heart, honest and trusting?
Love, unconditional and unshakeable?
Arms, warm and open?

Do I give him a son to grow tall beside him?
A special smile;  one only he sees?
Private jokes and little ‘I love you’ notes hidden in his luggage?

What do I give to the man who is everything?
Just everything.
Every day.
Forever.

 

For my dearest partner, Bill, on his birthday. Always and forever, my love.

The Fine Line

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You start in the corners,
scooping out detritus.
Poke, poke, poke the straws in the corners
to loosen the greebles and bits.

Then the long swing to sweep it all into
the middle of the floor;
the very middle of the floor.
but the litter of dust bunnies won’t lie still.
First this way, then that, they overshoot the molehill,
jumbling, tumbling in the broom breeze.

Now lay down the dustpan flat,
press it hard against the floor,
scoot the bunnies and greebles with a swift swat.

But after sliding them all into the trash bin you turn
and see it.
The line of dirt.
The fine line of dirt the dustpan left behind,
pointing at you accusingly.

Again you sweep.
The line becomes finer.
Now sweep in the opposite direction.
The line becomes finer yet and points towards the broom closet.
Resignation settles with the dust.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
So does a fine line of dirt.

 

This was a challenge from my friend Margo. There you go Margo!

The Plural of

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Add an s and you should be done
but that wouldn’t be any fun.
If singular window is windows when plural
it follows that house is houses, surely,
but put a mouse inside that house
and soon you’ll have a lot of mouses.
They’ll spread and soon there will be mice
living in all your neighbours’ hice.

If the plural of tooth is teeth
then it only seems right to me,
that though  I smooth the path for others
and they may smooth the path for me,
if we smoothed paths together
we’d have to say “we smeethed”.

Like a child in the wild
or children in the wildren
tedium for one medium
is tedia for two media.

And if someone decides to lay down and die
would two people then lie down and dice?

I think perhaps I’ve lost my focus
and wandered into hocus pocus.
If you did too, then we lost our foci
and wandered into hoci poci.