24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
At night, when you and I are sound asleep
The world changes around us
Gradually but steadily
New leaves turn
The old ones turn to soil
Insects come out and
Birds break out from their shell
Life and death is but a common occurrence
As Earth moves gradually but steadily
At night when you and I are sound asleep
That’s when life happens
I remember when flying was a nervous wreck about take off and landing I remember when flying was a quick trip in and out I remember when flying was a trip without taking your shoes off I remember when flying wasn't a ziploc bag filled with liquids I remember when flying was just flying
If I have Daughters
They must be a fine seed
viable even in arid lands.
Mother, Earth knows your essence:
I planted songs of praise
for those who take care
of us – me and my kinds
termed as open wounds
to be sauced with salt,
along the way to the markets
without calling names.
A woman wrote your name
on a paper and placed
it on my palm. It reads:
your mother tops the list.
If I have daughters,
they must be you –
a gardener of love.
Prompt 14 : Poem about Mother nature and us
I see her around sometimes
wearing concrete shoes
and a dusty cloak
an abandoned mother
whose green-eyed children
revel and rejoice
in fireworks that dazzle
but whose future is smoke
(hour 15)
By Sandy Lender
When they’re the size of a quarter
You can’t sex turtles
So she’s been named Josh all her life
That’s thirty-two years now
Some of them better than others
Thanks to my financial highs and lows
And my understanding of turtle nutrition
She went to college with me
I joke that Josh is prob’ly the only RES with a BA
I built her a horse-trough pond in the back yard
With fencing around & above to keep out osprey
Because she’s a girl, she’s large
But still…
This spring, she produced an egg
No boy turtles involved
No winter hibernation beforehand
No special foods introduced to her diet
You can imagine my surprise
I dove into pet-turtle-owner panic
Of course…
How much calcium should I now add to her daily intake?
How much more UV light does she now require?
Why on Earth did she wait until 2020 to do this?
Or maybe it’s because of 2020
I mean…
Knowing the egg to be infertile,
I scooped it out and cleaned it up
I shall display it in a shadow box
Proudly…
Because my Joshua laid an egg.
“‘In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
I knew from a very young age
my connection to the land
No small feat for a city kid
Every summer would find me at
Horseshoe Lake, nestled in
the Minnesota Northwoods
Grandparent’s retirement haven
became the same to me
once allowed my freedom to roam
By age nine I knew every inch of
those Mission Township woods
sounds, smells, tastes, textures
Woods have always called me
beckoning when I needed them
embracing me when I arrived
An inquisitive kid, I knew who
I could ask about anything:
Mr. Hanson knew fishing
His wife was the bird expert
their neighbor, Mrs. Wheeler
was my go-to for stars, sky
Mr. Friest understood my
spiritual nature, connections
Mr. Holm found me amusing
Old Man Reid knew wood
grandma, grandpa knew a lot
about a whole bunch of things
They all knew me and how I took
to the woods, the water, them.
They knew what the woods did.
‘This kid from the big city?
Here is where he belongs.
This kid is one of us.’
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2020
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
We often poison “those who take care of us”
fooled into believing
We know what’s is best.
We render the ground free of weeds,
nature’s way of blessing earth.
We with our monochromatic golf course lawns,
Blind ourselves with ignorance
And kill the ones with powers to heal.
.
Beth A. Fleisher
Hour 14
Prompt: In her wonderful book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes — ‘In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.’ Use any part of this quote (with credit), or the ideas it contains as a jumping off point for your poem this hour.
Plants Who Love Us
When Creator placed the peoples on Mother Earth,
he also provided everything they needed for food, shelter,
clothing, transportation, happiness, and good health.
All of these good gifts are provided by the birds, fish, and animals
and by plants and trees. Native peoples would say, the wingeds,
the swimmers, and the four-leggeds.
When an animal is hunted for food, in the traditional
Native way, the hunter asks permission to take its
life for their food, and then thanks the animal for that gift.
Likewise, when plants are harvested for food, there are
ceremonies to thank the plants for taking care of
the people and for giving them their good medicine.
Long before medicine was made in big buildings for profit,
Native peoples knew which plants to use for good health,
where to find them, how to gather them so as to protect
next year’s crop, how to prepare them, and how much
and how often to consume them for the best benefits.
All of these things Creator taught the peoples.
In traditional life ways, even in 2020, many Native peoples
still rely on all their relations, plant and animal, to provide
for their needs. A familiar saying is, We are all related.
We are all part of this world that Creator has made for us.
We all help each other. We all take care of each other.
We all need each other. We are all related.
There are very few poems about air travel, even though there are a lot about driving, train travel, and subway commuting.
Your prompt this hour is to write a poem about a plane trip.
Prompt 14 (Half Marathon 2 Hour 2)
The fog rolls out over the Berkeley hills
From my aunt’s kitchen, I can now see her garden
Hungry and curious, I step outside
I work my way down the slopes, shivering a bit,
Marvelling at how these plants took root
They are resilient, way more resilient than I
Growing through sun, rain, and fog
All to ensure others get fed
They are lower in the evolutionary chain
But there is so much we can learn from them
The garden is a riot of color
Crimson tomatoes of varying sizes
Flames of squash right beside
Sweet blueberries overpowering the green of their bushes
Green herbs, each with a scent of its own
Back inside, I chop and mix furiously
The first bite is as fresh as the crack of dawn
I’ve been to the best restaurants in the city
But this nourishes my body in a way no other can