24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Harvest
Cinnamon leaves gather
in a hush of early dusk.
The last of summer moths flock
to the lightbulb on the porch
wings insistent on warmth.
In the air a slight tremor, a shiver as September
takes it’s place at the helm of the year
and elbows August out.
The moon as red as a beet
peeks from the clouds
its blushing face a mirage
drowning
in a bucket of water.
My best friend plays the organ
A sad and somber song
The crowd, all dressed in black,
Just trying to be strong
I straighten up my Windsor knot
And stare at my reflection
Try one last time to cover
Every little imperfection
I sneak a peak into the church
My freezing feet call me a fraud
The crowd begins to stand and cry
The Wedding March plays on
I close my eyes, take one deep breath,
And then I turn the corner
Slowly walking down the aisle
I pass by all the mourners
They didn’t want to be here
They didn’t want to come
They didn’t want to see us
Two becoming one
Me, in my suit and tie
Darkness as my bride
I’d say till death do us part
But I’ve already died inside
An elk is the loudest of all deer,
Glass lightbulbs contain gas and are fragile.
Buckets are biblically old in design and sometimes leaky,
Carports offer protection from the weather.
Elbows facilitate surreptitious nudging.
All carry characteristics of grannies.
Author: ©️Jane Eckford
2nd September 2023
Back to the outdoors.
Leave technology behind.
Enjoying the night sky.
Stars shining brightly.
A vast universe.
So many destinations.
Places to go.
People and things to see.
Oh, the great outdoors.
Butterflies live in air that is, to them,
As solid as water.
They swim, or fly,
Tumbled by the currents.
A garden of butterflies is, perhaps,
A kind of aquarium
Where we can sit
Surrounded by air fish.
Sitting in the carport, drinking a beet smoothie,
A cinnamon Elk with a bucket on his antler looked at me truely.
Coming from the Bayou, I’ve never seen an Elk before, my stomach tremored, my mouth went dry.
With my elbow I knocked off the bucket as I ran by.
The elk chased me, out of the carpark, my heart pounding hard.
He ran into to the woods, and into the dark.
I pulled my jacket round me as I get in my car.
A lightbulb of an Idea formed, I need to find a bar.
The cinnamon broom above my door
Deep in the Bayou where only crickets can hear
Boats tremor in the swampland
Insects who look like they are wearing beet colored jackets
The solitude creates my peace
But let’s go back a step to ask why the earth had to be flat.
and that leads me to a deeper question that some people wonder about. “If God is Love, why does he let all these terrible things happen.”
I have the solution to both philosophical problems. #1 God makes mistakes.
God also is really embarrassed by those mistakes. And similar to most people God wants to have those mistakes forgotten and the record cleared.
So at one point around year 900 or so, who knows for sure?
God took took the earth by storm and rolling pin:
The flat earth period began. Why did he do it you might ask?
It happened because God took seriously the phrase Sweep it under the carpet, and God needed a carpet as big as the earth itself to put all his dirt under.
A bucket in the cellar held the beet crop from last week.
Grandma was going to can them with cinnamon, a favorite family treat.
The house tremored as a gang of elks roamed near,
kicking grandma’s worry into high gear.
“This wouldn’t happen on the bayou, back home.”
She cried out, as her elbow jabbed my side.
beet *
jacket
tremor *
bayou *
elbow *
lightbulb
cinnamon*
bucket *
elk*
carport
The stars so bright
Shimmering like they know my inner dreams
Waiting to burst open and explode for the world to see