The Poetry Marathon

A wild grape vine,

sprouted in the midst of my south lilac bush several years ago.

A bird planted it –

yep –

a pooped seed vine.

Now it is over twenty feet high,

tendrils waving from the top of an old Rowan tree.

Thirty feet down,

I am training another of its shoots

to grow along my fence.

All this marvelous green shade because once,

a bird ate a grape

and then,

well, then, it pooped in my back yard.

September 2016 will be three years.

You went to a party.

Your phone pinged a tower near your home.

Then to now.

No word.

Friends, family, law enforcement, strangers,

dogs and divers, planes and pedestrians have searched.

When harvest happened that fall, all expected you to be found,

your car, something.

Nothing but nothing.

Still today.

Your parents old before their time,

waiting. a community questioning how and why and where?

Still.

Nothing

Nowhere

How? Even your car. Vanished.

Late Saturday afternoon,

familiar summer sound revs up,

neighbors’ lawn mower blats along

as the grass flings out of the chute.

A sudden metallic CLANG!

halts the motor abruptly.

Various *!@#!! words float up to the window beside my desk.

Futile pulling on the starter rope,

twice, four, five dammit times.

Surrender.

Evening quiet settles.

Scuttlebutt: orig: a cask or butt with an opening for a dipper. 1. nautical – a drinking fountain on shipboard  2. colloq. – rumor or gossip, such as might be passed at the water fountain or “scuttlebutt”

Do folk even gather around a water fountain any more?

Seems we are all busy with our filtered,

flavored, measured, vitamins added, self-cooling, straw attached jugs

to bother with a public fountain.

I have discovered though,

as I age (not as gracefully as some might hope)

and work with a decidedly younger group of co-workers that:

“scuttlebutt” definition #2 has reached an art-form in:

drama, drama, drama.

I could never have imagined how willingly folk

would be

to expose themselves

so openly on public forums.

Discretion and common sense no longer watchwords,

and more’s the sorrow…

’cause if you put it out there, someone, is going to find it…

Palms lifted,

eyes lowered,

voice steady…

thank you, thank you, thank you

for today’s journey with the words.

Psalm comes back in dove murmurs,

I am

Here, here, here.

With pink feet tracing in the fine sand,

the dove continues to murmur.

Once more,

I am here, here, here.

God speaks her voice to my ear,

as I step into the yard and the dove takes flight.

Barely solid ground,

bits of the walkway splinter

and sway.

Mired to the hip on the right,

possibly bear bait on the lift.

Will you still run

when this path is your only choice?

Awakened by someone else’s dreams,

vague, unlived memories.

Sepia toned or black and white tasting of

big band music,

the failing of an empire or falling off the earth.

A voice speaking of a tropical veranda

where tigers paced beneath louvered windows.

The not mine voice told

of the pom, pom, pom sound a pug, a trail along the porch.

Heavy breathed feline greatness panting in the humid jungle night…

-Sumatra?-

I, awake fully now in the humid corn steam wet of Iowa night and wonder,

where this memory palace is built,

whose rooms these are.

I walk the hall, wonder if it was something I read,

or saw in a film

or was it then another dimension, a time trip me?

Train of thought derailed

by quick walk  to book store,

my order of picture books in.

Running my fingers through the pages,

across the words,

savoring the art

admitting I can never do such work,

vowing to find a way.

To splatter my carmine words across an indigo sky,

I embrace the Dali in my brain voice,

we melt across the sundial in the library lawn.

A hearty growth of phlox

now encroaches on the cairn of my beloved BB,

shepherd friend who lies in peace ‘neath friendship picked stones and memories.

I shall try to transplant what needs cutting back,

dig rather than chop off.

The light determines the color of the blossoms,

some say pink, violet or purple.

Others say lavender, blue or a shade of all.

Fragrant, fragile blooms rain upon the grass as the breeze pushes her fingers

through the leggy stems.

A light floral fragrance lifts,

settles onto the back of the tongue and summer is tasted.

Is winning.

Technology: 100   Me: Zero

How did I get HERE, from where I was…

looking up a word definition.

Wait! Go back!

No, I do not wish to donate, sign a petition or speak to a counselor,

I just want…

To hell with it.

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