24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
You are so bothered
by the lines on your body
you read them like libel
or graffiti on a temple
When I see the stretch
I see growth
A past
memories good and bad
Most of all I see change
Something inside
growing beyond its home
Creating new temples for itself
I wish you wouldn’t erase the growth
even the pain has formed interesting lines
embrace them, as I have
Watching you grow into something wonderful
Went with the text prompt for Hour 11. Not my favorite, but this is what I got.
In her pretend forest ranger fantasy
she wore periwinkle gumboots
and yellow ribbons
Every afternoon she’d dance
between the skyscraper trees
and skip past squirrel-run storefronts
on her way home to have sourdough toast
with a marmalade spread
Along the way, the clouds would rain glitter
so by the time she got home she’d be sparkly
and ready for sleep
26 June 2021
Covid era Sunday on a clear afternoon.
No reason to watch white walls
And old binged Netflix
On a day without a cloud.
There was no sour dough starter.
Piles of canned food
Diapers.
This wasn’t stockpile.
It was a house of 9.
A put a n95 mask on my face
Periwinkle gloves on my hands
A hat on my hair.
If I got Covid it was the same as everyone
Coughing for weeks
Lying in bed
And that was the best case.
The store fronts were empty,
Closed
but the grocery hummed.
I take the third box in the row
So afraid covid is glued on them all.
I snag my jacket on a shelf.
Mutter a curse.
I’ll have to take a needle and sew that up
My 50 new pounds
Ate up my clothes.
Not much remains.
I get home
Spraying my boxes with alcohol
Still leaving them in the hall for 3 days.
What a waste of a cloud free day.
Where the skyscraper meets
the periwinkle sky
and hawks glide by
on currents
The city heats
with concrete beats
upon the weary eye.
Electric fields like webs entangle
wrapping us cocoon like in their signal
Storefronts bustle
in their hustle
bleeding night
from day.
I see a cloud
above the fray
white and fluffy true
reminding me
of sourdough
biscuits in the blue.
I rise before the sun, leaving the dark rain cloud, my gumboots and forestranger hut behind me.
The wheels roll through miles, until l reach the ocean, the beat of wave upon shore, a pile of periwinkle glitter like gold in the light from the rising sun, l search for the elusive seahorse alas it is not to be, like looking for a needle in a haystack. The horizon stretches flat except for one lonely distant skyscraper.
I walk towards town my favourite storefront coming into veiw, l take a seat wànd my love is waiting to spread golden honey on my sourdough.
Some people called us Forest Rangers,
though really, we were the lowest GS
in the USFS. Not the highest tower either,
certainly not as tall as a skyscraper,
but at three stories, 45’ Corral Hill’s cabin
was high enough that our heads were
in the clouds on late summer days.
When socked in, I made bread from
the sourdough starter Mrs. Bayes gave
us. It lofted like a sail at 6,000.’ On other
days, thunderheads spread across
the prairie like a coming gale. On those
days, we watched the prairie like hawks.
On the tower, we were often scared, lonely,
or stir crazed. We’d been struck once,
which frightened us badly, and some storms
were much more dangerous than the
cumulonimbus cloud we’d been hit by,
which made us sensible to fear for our lives.
Double Stuf Oreos are only 1.86 times as stuffed as classic Oreos.
24% of deaths from the ages of 15-24 are from suicides.
Opossums are so excited when they are scared they pass out.
Mental disorders in youth are ranked as the second highest hospital care expenditure in Canada, surpassed only by injuries.
The smell of fresh grass is released when plants are in distress.
Only 1 in 5 children who need mental health services receive them.
A lobster’s bladder is in its head.
49% of those afflicted with depression or anxiety do not seek treatment.
the neighbors’ dogs
bark half-heartedly–
small power outages
temperature
in the 90s
one crow caws
a sip of green tea
imagining for a moment
a cool breeze
(after Octavia Butler’s “Earthseed”)
there’s this place where I am special
I can feel others feels
famine, war, tyranny, this all complicates things
so I travel
on foot
picking up other travelers I hope are safe
victims
children
healers
and others afflicted with being special like me
as we all search
search for water
search for safety
search for lost ones
search for ourselves
I am so grateful for my family.
I am grateful I get to be happy.
I am grateful for good friends.
I am grateful for being able to move and walk and stand.
I am grateful for good health.
I am grateful for enough wealth.
I am grateful for having a home.
I am grateful for always having support and not being left on my own.
I am grateful for love and hugs and kisses.
I am grateful for memories and pictures.
I am grateful for books to read.
I am grateful for sunsets and entertainment that we all need.
I am sort of grateful for learning and school.
I am grateful for weather, hot and cool.
I am grateful I have no strife.
I am grateful for life.