The Poetry Marathon

Under the moist blanket of pine needles
and cool, dark, loose soil,
early afternoon,
though the veil of pine trees dropping
its shroud of duskiness over the forrest;
and in places we looked yesterday,
we find popping up those familiar
dark veiny fungus popping up over the grove;
soon our afternoon crop will be cleaned
and become part of a supper also
gleaned from the land –
our land fertile and abundant.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016

after winter opened her taught fist,
and mountains of snow made ponds in the yard,
my Grandmother nurtured peach pit seeds
for weeks –
ready for transplant…
she mixed rich soil and added her secret nutrients,
the tiny seedlings transferred from cellar slips,
to baby trees ready for a hot house to solidify viability;
each tree that grew healthy in her orchard started
from a pit she saved from grocery store purchases;
mmmm…those juicy fruits prime for pickin’
and pies and preserves never tasted so good.
Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016

Standing tall in it’s stately manner,
curved at the top and rich purple grapes
growing up the trellis and overhead,
prolific with fruit and beautiful to see;
in just weeks all that plump fruit
will be cleaned and boiled down,
sugar added, and poured into
small glass jelly jars –
winter provisions
for a hungry family.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016

The end of May when all the cars show up
at the Speedway,
preliminary races entertain the crowd,
warming up the beaten track
and smells of rubber fill the nostrils;
car lovers live for this day as the sounds
of motors shake the stands
and people get excited
when they hear the sounds
and smell the smells of race day
in Indianapolis.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016

Crusty, mousy brown pods,
that only a month before was a pleasant prickly green,
tops so pointed,
they nip the fingertips,
breaking the stem,
brings oozing milk
in the circumference of the shoot;
cool weather matures this plant
and the pod –
broken open,
full of white, fuzzy seeds –
catching the crisp air,
lofting,
settling over the fields
in a web ready to take root for next year’s crop.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/2016

Edinburgh –

Indiana, not England,
1970s
where random explosions
burst through the
purple and orange evening sky –
uneasy flocks of birds
trying to find a place of quiet,
a place to safely perch,
we lived one town north,
Franklin,
the explosions still jarring.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/16

June.

Warm, breezy, dark evenings,

my sisters and I ran circles in the back yard,

my grandparents sitting in their

aluminum, mesh webbed chairs,

a pleasant childhood playground,

Ball jars with aeriated lids,

to capture the lighted beetles speckling

the air with neon green lights.

Michellia D. Wilson   8/13/2016

As I push back the curtains,
the shrubbery below the frosty window,
in it’s evergreen style –
with it’s small prickly green foliage,
home to bagworms during summer,
nestling pockets of snow now,
in the glimmering cold sunshine
of a mid January day in central Indiana,
home,
a place in my memory so relevant,
that I can feel the wintery blast
take my breath when I walk outside
past the shrubs lining the sidewalk.

Michellia D. Wilson 8/13/16

Part XXIV

…oh, beautiful red poppies,
I have awakened – like Dorothy –
I seem to have all my limbs
and my mind is working well enough
to know that the dream I just had
was too far out to be true;
I try and rise to my feet –
fall to my face;
I put my hand on my chest,
where a heart beats…
I feel the stitches that are holding it together,
I look at my hands,
the wedding ring is long gone –
no white skin to show the 20 years of matrimony;
could it be?
This was not a dream at all!

fin

– Michellia D. Wilson 8/24/14 7 AM
Let us remember: Robin Williams – A Fellow Tortured Artist
To all Guillain Barre Syndrome victims
To all who suffer mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder

Part XXIII

January 1, 1999,
I moved from my home,
left with only my clothes and books,
slept on a futon mattress on a cold, drafty floor,
choked on tears and phlegm, coughed and
wished myself dead every single waking moment;
I swallowed just enough pills to sleep,
and sleep,
and sleep,
and sleep,
until that day I woke up –
paralyzed and strangers had to carry me from blackness,
to something I was told is called daylight.
Damn near blinded me…

– Michellia D. Wilson 8/24/14 6 AM