Can the ocean feel?
There where the land splits apart,
who heals the edges?
J. Pratt-Walter
6/22/2019
Jennifer Pratt-Walter
jenniferprattwalter
In this short bio, my every breath.
Continental Drift
From the air the rift is obvious.
Cascades, Sierra Nevadas —
I see how the Earth folded herself,
intimate and generous
into the shift and spread.
Between us, the space is not so clear.
I have bent, turned, given in, broken down
and hidden
but the quakes, the insults,
the mean stares and rivers of anger —
where does this plain and transparent
continent of me
drift to?
J. Pratt-Walter
6/22/2019
Soundless
Soundless, the roses
sing their fragrant music that
only I can hear.
J. Pratt-Walter
6/22/2019
Morning
First you awaken.
The day paints its hope on you
on the heart’s canvas.
Jennifer Pratt-Walter
6/22/2019
Return When the Hour Calls
How it Ends is
just the beginning.
Sleep here tonight, then leap
out that bright new door.
See, I love you too much
to measure. Tommy, may that day
come again, where
I curl into a bowl and you purr,
where you speak and I know
Love has not one boundary, not one!
Dear One, return
when the hour calls for the
orange and white joy
that the soul of a cat can bring.
Look back when you can,
and remind me of love when I feel
too empty.
J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 8/2017
Black Wings
We cannot eat this bread.
A shadow reached all the way around
the sky
as a life tilted away like a
country road headed north.
We sometimes forget
just how to move air in and out —
There are no easy breaths here.
We search for life, and find
loss instead.
We seek reasons, but find
no words
but “broken,” “mystery,” “gone,” “sorry.”
Starved, we long for light, but find
the black wings of a darkness too vast
to walk through. Meanwhile
I will cry, then
I will bake a new kind of bread to awaken
a different kind of morning.
J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 8/2017
Oasis
In this fierce desert
I seek the green oasis
blooming in your eyes.
J. Pratt-Walter © 8/2017
Carrying a Torch
To the Muse of Forever Love
Carrying a torch,
they call it,
but I have ignited
both ends
and swallowed flames,
impelling spears of consecrated
Light
deep into the heartland
of my soul.
J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 8/2017
That Day
That was the day her breasts
rose up, areola and nipples and velvet skin,
all on their own, and took back
their sanctity, their
“sanc-titty.”
That was the day she knew
she was a Goddess
of the richest kind, no matter
what he said or how
he said it
J. Pratt-Walter, © 8/5/2017
When Tiny Died
When Tiny died, I saw,
even at the moment of death, the sores
on his skin trying like desperate soldiers
to heal themselves.
His lungs hissed out
for new air, even as life pressed away
in a fevered moment.
His wife Shirley
touched the empty bed, the sweat,
the small flowers of blood on the sheet,
then curled up on it, feeling
that final warmth,
his large body alive in her memory
as the morticians bagged him up.
J. Pratt-Walter, (c) 8/2017
