Hour 5; Prompt 5: A Thought Whilst Laying in A Grove
I wonder sometimes
What it must feel like to be a leaf
Slowly falling
Aimed toward the earth
Anticipating the sudden stop
Upon the ground
I am destined to one day be under
What must it be like
To one day be high up
Close enough to taste the sun
Close enough to smell the clouds
Close enough to hear the stars
Close enough to glimpse…God?
Just when you’ve begun to decipher
The mystery of it
The tree shudders
Your place in the heavens
Taken
By time or some other faceless cruelty
I shall no longer wonder of this
Because it is a truth we face from birth
We are all falling leaves
And despite our position in life
We all land in the same ground
Hour 5:Waxen Wings
Waxen Wings
Heavy mist clouds my vision,
obfuscates sun
chills my laborious mountain climb
to the summit
I believe the precipice will reveal truths
about life and death, love and loss
I breathe thin air, soak in weak rays
Icarus flew too close, but not I
Not today
Today I will my save waxen wings
for another climb
Prompt 5: Provisions
Both of us knelt by the boat,
and ensured the light – using our last two batteries –
would stay fixed.
My knees, already scraped by the rocks when I washed
out your shirt,
nearly buckled
as I rose up too fast
and simultaneously felt dizzy,
an electrified scarecrow on
the shore of sustenance
or oblivion.
You caught me
and smiled.
“They’ll see our campfire from here.”
Too tired to argue
whether “they” were on our side
or not,
I said nothing,
but looked out at a night
too beautiful to believe
we weren’t simply
on vacation.
Time Slows
The sound of nothing becomes a constant here
at 6,000 feet: flies buzz, wind rustles treetops.
The heat wafts up from the draw. We feel slow.
Slow muscles. Slow to answer. Slow to think.
It’s almost like sleepwalking through our days.
There is hauling water, taking weather stats,
preparing meals. And always, there is watching
for fire; now we watch the sun go down, orange-yellow
light igniting the valley. The forest needs our eyes.
We see chipmunks, ravens, eagles, and hawks.
We see camp robbers and quail. Wild flowers are
abundant: paintbrush, Kinnikinnick, Oregon grape,
and tiny new green huckleberries. We eat together,
alone with flies buzzing in lazy circles. Yellow jackets,
grasshoppers, and a distant plane. Then silence–
loud in its assertiveness. Heat settles down and the
glow begins to fade. We call it a day.
The Lake
The Lake
shimmers like the dream it represents
distant lights of Coeur d’Alene a beacon
of trust – we’re not in this alone.
and like many things
it’s not always what it seems.
we bathe in such calm waters
fed by rivers from the hills.
mines made money for a few
provided hard work and jobs
buried deep within the earth
trickle down washed to streams
flowed into pristine lake
hidden from view
way down on the bottom
like trickle down economics
as the gap widens between
rich and poor
healthy and sick
haves and have not’s
invisible as a virus
politicized until those at the top
realize that they can’t imagine it away.
that reality is more than what they think
the rest of us dive down to the bottom
and wonder why the water seems
a lot murkier than you’d expect.
Resurrection (1/2 Marathon, Hour Five)
Resurrection
Lazarus
Phoenix
Hope
Life
Resurrection is
Miracle
Fantasy
Desperation
Disbelief
Resurrection is
Revival
Rebirth
Resurgence
Reincarnation
Resurrection is not promised.
Everything is not meant to come back again.
Hour 5, prompt 5 Bottom of the River
Meet me at the bottom of the river,
where we can no longer speak,
existing beyond the horizon in a current of stars and sighs.
Let me wash you with stardust and rinse you with moonlight.
Let my skin say a prayer against yours.
Let me grant you one wish between my thighs.
Leave me at the edge of sunshine
where I can bath in shadows and midnight’s dew,
existing beyond twilight’s secrets and too many cloudless skies.
Constellations
The stars are thick in the sky
The stars are scattered in the lake
A star encased in glass sits in the boat
The stars shine from the town
I build constellations from sky
To water
To boat
To land
Wrapped in starlight
Blanketed in Light
Light spills
into the gap
between
here and gone
yesterday and tomorrow
what is, and what will be.
Walk the
illuminated path
to the other side.
When you get there,
turn and wave.
A recognition of the distance
you’ve traveled.
A greeting to those
walking their own paths
blanketed in light.