The Poetry Marathon

Homecoming

The land you know, even when you are lost can soothe a broken spirit with a familiar place to call home.

The road no longer feels long, it becomes a guide without a map to follow the twists and turns around each corner.

Knowing its peaks and valleys all too well. It makes a journey to the past feel like riding on a carousel.

The faces begin to mimic an old school teacher, a tired cashier, a man dedicated to his hustle, a mother smiling at the simple things in life.

The air so muggy and hot in the summer yet crisp and breezy in the winter.

Fall doesn’t exist because we know when the leaves begin to lift.

The seasons will shift from one extreme to the next.

Encouraging us all to take time to rest.

The water a mixture of grays and blues. A place many go to seek for solitude.

The clouds are mysterious with strokes of color displayed upon its never-ending canvas.

The scent of sweet potato pie and fried turkey or those pink azaleas flowers laying along the road all beautiful, soft, and sweet.

The energy of home when your bags can drop from your hands and lay peacefully at your feet.

The Night We Listened (2019 Poem 12)

The night we listened
To the oars rowing
Horn so near
It seemed
We could see our hearts
We heard the ocean
Full of warmth
We were perishing
Yet unheeding
In too great a hurry
I have since wondered
If we listen what
Might come to us
Out of the deep

Erasure of “Out of the Fog” by C.K. Ober

Inhale

I like how it feels to inhale chemicals

I wait for the wave to wash over me

Relax my being,

my mind shedding the suit of armor it has been wearing all day

and fade into the relaxing calm abyss

half-mast eyes, but a full smile

i am finally at peace

14 – the land knows you, even when you are lost

holding your heart in her rough hands

your soul growing in her wild fields

even with limbs, that longer sleep with in her

she reads you, the energy of your skin against hers

as you wander this life.

14 When You’re Lost

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”

The watery waves, though you are tempest tossed.

And see not lighthouse, but rocky shores,

Or sun-baked fields and gorse-filled moors.

They’ll both draw you down, deep down to their keep,

To cover you over. To smother your sleep,

That your slumber be only the memory you keep.

Yes, they know when you’re lost; devour death’s sting—

 

And you thought you were the food chain king?

A toast to the selfless

“The land knows you,even when you are lost.”

For a cut made by a grass blade,
she comes as holy basil for cure.
For a hungry stomach,
she comes as a ripened fruit.
For a scorching day,
she comes with her tree hands stretched.
For a thirst throat,
she comes as an elixir of water streams.

Whether you love her or harm her,
she’ll only serve you,care you!

Never Lost, Hour 14

The land knows you, even when you are lost
In times of uncertainty, seek the Wild
Search the rolling hills, the craggy peaks, the blistering desert for guidance

There are lessons if we remember how to listen
Wisdom embedded in sunbaked stone
In thick bark of sentinel Sequoia
In ferns unfurling through ash,
In lush wildfire aftermath
In swollen mountain runoff streams
In twilight screech of owl
In ecological balance of all species

The land knows you
Knows your ancestors
Knows your lineage and all that’s come before
Knows your power and your insignificance
Knows your place in context of the greater web of all life
In context of all that is and all that’s ever been

An omnipresent witness
To endless cycles of evolution and extinction,
Creation and cataclysm,
Growth and entropy,
The primordial ebb and flow of everything

When in doubt, sit under a tree
Lean back, watch branches sway in gusting wind,
Watch leaves dance to forest floor

The only thing truly lost is our connection

Hour Fourteen – We are not lost

“The Land knows you, even if you are lost…” Robin Wall Kimmerer

Image courtesy of PixelAnachy at Pixabay

 

The Earth is very forgiving…

We are destroying our Mother,

Yet she knows us and supports us

and will continue doing that

For as long as she possibly can.

Because we are her children

How long we still have is uncertain

But we need to understand

That her resources can be depleted

And we are depleteing them faster everyday.

How many species are we missing already?

I have stopped counting

since counting is futile

Yes, she knows us even though we are so lost

But we’d better stop depleting and begin to replenish

Or the day will surely come that she will

run out of everything

 

Antoinette LeRoux © 2019

 

9pm poem i couldn’t post bc i was at work

The streetlights turn on
And the night has begun
My work is not done.

A Western Wind

When my tears fall and the droplets resemble the islands
a western wind from eight thousand miles away visits to dry my eyes.

When my feet tire from an incline of a long street
I can hear my mountains tease the slightest discomfort
Don’t you remember us, girl?

These brown beach waters, hardly compare to their blue heaven
where you can barely discern the line between the crystalline sea and the sky.

I run my hands through the sand
and feel the rumble of the land from half a world away.
Come home to us.