The Poetry Marathon

Five travelers grew weak and weary

all their eyes had grown so bleary

through rustling darkness, some did cringe

but each had taken on this challenge

They arrived in clearing in a curious state

their words they’d hewn would seal their fate

the troupe would find with rhyming schemes

Each couplet turned to waking dreams

The images they scrawled turned lucid

to reality they would be there, translucent

One here has writ a bull, set to erupt

while, here, a winged angel’s love

this one faces the mouth of a lion

another yet sends a great eagle flying

They’d stumbled in this world most strange

all had joined this quest to change

You spun me from dawn to dusk

the soundtrack to my unrelenting,

tragically nasal angst 

nursing me with thunderous drums 

to soothe my infinite sadness

Loud through flimsy headphones

tethered to a yellow and black

CD player stuffed into the pocket

of my gaudily embroidered 

and oversized black JNCOs

Hoping the high and soaring riff 

of a crunchy guitar would glance the ear

of someone nearby who had been cradled 

in the arms of sleep and wept 

to the same melodies by starlight

An ingredient
no whisk will beat
It has a taste
you cannot eat

In its throes
it can enthrall
and in the end
will save us all

You have a curious way with flights

without fail 

a laptop is left behind at security

we are too late and 

the flight has to be rescheduled

or the time with the tornado

that made our detour trip impossible

and, somehow, always on the way

to visit your family?

I’m sorry,

you can put your earbuds back in now

I’ll stop reminding you…

Oh! And there was that one time

when we were almost sleepless

in the Seattle airport and

I was two seconds away from a meltdown

until a Buddhist monk floated by

and I felt everything go sideways

just for a second

as if his peace pulled it all back

darning the frayed edges

scattering the anxiety

and the frustration

replacing it with the joy of flight

the peace of weightlessness

suddenly

They announced your name

looked at each other wide-eyed

we ran down the concourse

at the gate, they let us board

And buckling our safety belts

I recall the dense grey clouds

by the time we reached altitude

there was 

nothing 

but 

blue

I apologize 

for my part in it

for when I was absorbed with myself

and I forgot to pay attention to you

for when I misused your generosity

and took more than was given

I apologize 

for any harm done to our relationship

if I have ever stepped on you

or placed you in a situation I knew you would not like

or blocked the sunlight from your face

or disrespected you in any way

I am sorry

You are very clear

Moving forward, I will listen

I will honor you

So, to those who take care of us

And to those who tend them now

And to those who tended them before

And to the hands that will tend them in the future

Thank you for your nourishment

Thank you for your protection

Thank you for your shade

Thank you for your love

Thank you for your healing

Thank you for your medicine

Ashe.

Inspired by Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who writes — ‘In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.’ Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

I’ve lived on the second floor
of someplace or another since 20, 10 and 4
Each day, I would find myself traversing the stairs to the outside world
Running halfway down in a dream, body hurled,
only to notice my near-sightedness
and rewinding
just to miss the bus
an ever-transpiring malady
to retrieve my glasses or my keys
before the door slams shut behind me
And at night I’d twist one big toe in a semi-circle in front of me
finding my way in the dark
practicing ballet
Doing pirouettes for the fool moon

I didn’t really consider the utility of stairs until
I couldn’t take a step on my own and my broken foot swelled
Suddenly, my ankle refused to support me through this transitory space
between the places
that held my life
I crawled from the bed excited to use the bathroom
so I could see a different color paint, I tried to escape,
In my bed, I would dream of Scotty beaming me up and out
anywhere, but this sinkhole my body had dug into the mattress
Stuck like a cold tile in grout

Ask me where I go when I can’t
When there’s nowhere left to hide
I tunnel inside of myself, out of rebuttals to delay
Pulling back the sheets I’d thrown over the furniture of my truth
to keep it from getting dusty while I was away
Sweeping out the cobwebs
Recycling the beer cans
And moving back into the heart I had left lonely
My spirit suddenly and boldly
thankful for that moment when I fell
down and went boom
so I could make the room
to begin to see
that there’s always been more waiting for me
casting off the illusion that this was accidental
Depression and seclusion kept me hurting and distant
From my best version
I’m unearthly and my birth anointed by the sun
appointed by a jinn nonchalantly looking up from a newspaper to say,
“Welcome in. I have been waiting for you. What do you wish?”

I want to learn to walk before I run

She brought it all inside in a large basket

The first harvest was all she hoped for

Taking each eggplant and pepper up

And cleaning the flesh between her soft hands

The water scattered earth around the sink

And ran down in a little stream from her elbow

As she popped a sweet, yellow cherry tomato 

into her mouth and daydreamed of a dinner party

She would decorate the dining room

With strings of lights draped from curved branches

And tealights and wildflowers on the table  

Not knowing who would come to fill the space

I used to pride myself

in the bold statement

that I had no interest

in Cat Stevens

To me 

he was in the oeuvre

of middle-aged white men

toting acoustic guitars

and singing droopy songs

One day

annoyed by my hollow decrees

my partner sat me down

and made me listen

to “Father & Son”

Rather than whining

there was an inverted echo 

between the old and the young:

the old have gone and now must stay

the young have staid and now must go

I thought I’d heard Cat Stevens

But I was listening to Yusef Islam

Before he left

and turned into himself

What a strange work of deception it was

To think that some mask I put on long ago 

to hide away my pain 

would take me so far from home

Can I ask you, in the lethargic heat of a Virginia summer,

To catch a bottleful of zooming fireflies

And hold them up to the screen

So I can see them dance?