Tracy Plath – Page 14 – The Poetry Marathon

Hour Five, Place of meaning

Morpheus

I was not supposed to be there,
that place in the woods.
I went anyway,
reasoning that one
who walked softly
could not be a trespasser.

The path leading in could
easily be missed,
a barely seen comma
in a nearly unbroken green sentence.

The cool and dappled quiet
soothed my troubled teen soul,
and I followed the barely-there path
as it wound its meandering way
round a small pond’s edge.

The stiff, sharp spines of surrounding
reeds protected pristine water
lilies from my reaching hands
until I found a small break in the reeds
and waded my way into the shallows.

I stripped away my outer layers
until I lay naked in the sun,
a yearning Ophelia, unable to complete
my wish for oblivion deeper than sleep,
instead allowing a silence
that was not silent
to fill and heal
an aching teen’s troubled soul.

Hour Four, Repeating line, four stanzas

Intersections

We assume separation when in fact there is unseen
connection, one state of being intersects another.
Beach umbrellas lined the shore in multihued rows,
mirroring the shore’s sweeping curve and assuming
the waves will never reach their ordered lines when in fact
chaos creeps closer at each pass, and will soon overwhelm.

We assume separation when in fact there is unseen
connection, one state of being intersects another.
A flower’s petals uncurl, a sea creature spirals its shell,
the hair of my baby’s head clockwise swirls, within
my belly once upon a time his spine curved as he grew,
and nebulae swirl their majestic starry arms, all ordered
to Fibonacci, the scientific dreamer’s, sequence.

We assume separation when in fact there is unseen
connection, one state of being intersects another.
We glimpse a hitchhiker with long, dark hair in
a flashing, clear instant as we pass on the highway,
she on her journey and we on ours, not sparing
another thought until her picture flashes on the news,
a match to our memory, her death intersecting our lives,
one path ending while our own goes on.

We assume separation when in fact there is unseen
connection, one state of being intersects another.
So easy to believe in the moments when I see myself
that this life will go on just as it is, it will continue
on its smooth course, though even without trauma,
without any interrupting drama, this life changes day
by day. The memory of youth and strength lingers
while the outer shell ages, connected and continuing,
eternity in my momentary now.

Hour Three, Image

Kinship

I left the trail temporarily,
my backpack straps tugging
my shoulders down and back
until I found this place, off
the beaten path and becoming
a part of the soil that once
supported its structure.

I laid my burden down
on a rock and wandered
the ruin, noting a rusted
refrigerator, gaping, a rotten
opening in a gap-toothed grin.

Clapboard siding was piled
and ready, the house skinned
and awaiting a cleansing fire
that never came, snow now piled
over the whole.

A single sock, a child’s doll, smashed
Ball glass jars, the half
buried detritus of lives
interrupted, transported elsewhere
in a clenched heartbeat.

I sat on a rock nearby, still,
but for the wind sliding
over the minute hairs on my skin,
akin with the emptied rooms
in front of me, now
open to the sky.

Hour Two, Unspoken longing

Shy

Darting glances and dimpled half smiles
lit my face when you were near,
and I saw you,
saw you when no one else did,
your broad shoulders, large hands,
the planes and angles of a man
just emerging
from the soft roundness of a boy.

I saw you, I desired you, to merge myself
and blend into those angles and edges,
my own soft curves
just emerging
from the angular slimness of a girl,
never once suspecting
that you saw me,
saw me when no one else did, until now.

Hour One, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water

Elemental

Wild child, breezing through
the passing days, twigs caught
in my hair, I rode
the back of the north wind,
her spirit child.

No one ever told me
those swiftly disappearing
days would be here
and gone, burned away
in a flaming instant.

For what do flames need
most to feed them
but air?

The kinesis of roiling
atoms that once informed
my being became one man’s
food, and I nearly disappeared,
subsumed within the fire.

On my knees in cindered
supplication, water revived
and cleansed me, and I
evolved once again, a fish
darting in gleaming shimmers.

Slip-sliding through currents,
another gently supported,
behind, below, around, held
but not restrained by the water
bearer’s caressing hands.

One day it will come,
my final being, a child
of the earth at last, coming home.
The once sustaining waters
will flow, trickle, and slow.

For what will my own wild
child need? I will feed
that which feeds my children.

Hello, lovely poet people

SO looking forward to this year’s marathon, perhaps even more than the last two because writing time has been difficult to carve out lately. I’m buzzing and bursting with words that need a home, and tomorrow is the day I hope they find it. Much love to my Some Poets family that are participating, and to everyone else accepting this sustaining challenge as well!

Tracy Plath

Prompt Hour Twenty-four–to do what others do not

A Mother's Lot

A Mother’s Lot

Feeding everyone else first
while her own food cools

Keeping wakeful watch over sick
babies in fitful sleep

Wearing clothes with holes
so teens can wear brand names

Sitting in a backseat
for a carsick child up front

Sacrificing, scrimping, serving
so that others may thrive,
such is a mother’s lot:
to do, as so many others, do not.

Tracy Plath

Prompt Hour Twenty-three–a sense of place

Mystery Machine

When I was small my family prepared for a month long cross country road trip, Florida to California, there and back again. My parents, two brothers, mother’s sister, and I would need to comfortably coexist, mile upon mile, night after day after night.

We traveled in what I called our Mystery Machine, a brown van that seemed specially made for our family, our needs. A full-sized bed folded down from the seats, my brothers and I sprawled out in luxury, years before law enforced seat belts and car seats. My parents would sleep there at night.

Bench seats surrounded a fold-out table to share our evening meal, seats that would become my nightly nest, close by my parents’ breathing, secure. A tiny refrigerator kept daily drinks chilled, a fold-down counter prepped food.

My mother sewed curtains and placed them all round the windowed perimeter of this home space, pulled into dainty x-shapes during the day, and sheltering us from night’s prying eyes.

A pop-up trailer pulled behind this wondrous, folding machine kept my aunt and brothers close by through the night. It was magical, this mystery machine, an origami creation in metal, folding, unfolding, to meet all our needs, all the way there, and back again.

Tracy Plath