The Poetry Marathon

FUNERAL SINGERS – #8

“All my friends are funeral singers” – Sylvan Esso / Califone

 

They line up, in formation dressed in black and gold

Their harmonies studied their conductor reaches out

Stretching towards each note passed from open mouths

They take care not to step out of the lines

They are practicing to herald my final movements 

 

I imagine a simple coffin, a few flowers on the top

No grave to throw roses or tulips or dandelions 

but weeds are welcome at my final concert

The songs having been carefully chosen

By all of them together over a few drams

 

I taught them how to enjoy the single scotch

Carried far from cool islands to warmer climes

How to dance to the speech of foxes

They will not mourn me 

They are practiced in saying goodbye

8 Nature

On the edges of a limb the colors

Travel too quickly and you will doubt

That you saw the change commence

 

In time amber leaves will join others

A chorus of brights now remembered

From before continues to amaze

 

A miracle as smart as greening spring

Grateful as heated days of abundance

The surprise of crystal cold mornings

 

Humbled by exquisite happenings planned

Creatures flourish without thinking

Joining the purposed maintenance of life

Hour 8–Reverie

Hour eight began with me cursing my neighbor with the leaf blower as I tried to listen to the instrumental piece. Earbuds, sufficient volume later, I calmed down and

let the music pour into me, indeed, like daylight

the tenderness of light tempered by shadow

neither bearable without the other

unsure whether the long shadow indicated morning or evening

the promise of balance sure nonetheless

I glided over the ash of Lahaina

a gloaming stuttering child

a heart basket of hurt and loss

that thickened blood and shuttered eyes

and pulled me into the deepest quiet

quiet now

quieter still

 

 

 

 

Funeral Songs

I’m already tired of funeral songs

Only a few decades under my belt

and yet I feel like I’ve seen too many funerals

A few for the old

but too many for the young

and those near to me I wish I could hold tight

But bottles still spill out

along with the blood and the soul

of those I have known for at least two liftetimes

A Lesson on Growing

(or, The Menagerie pt. 2)

 

My early memories are few and far between

but I remember being tiny and excited

to gawk snakes and bugs and other critters

some lady brought to my pre-K class

to teach us about animals.

I think there was a fennec fox,

but mostly I was fascinated by the spindly-legged tarantulas,

and the giant yellow-and-white python that voided itself on my mom’s favorite shirt.

 

My dad spent my fourteenth summer

tidying the stoop of our front porch.

It wasn’t so bad but for a couple of spiders,

big-bellied and proliferate,

becoming a nuisance in need of eviction.

I watched Dad, fearless of the world as he so seemed,

and must have said something to offset him.

He plucked the nearest spider from its nest and tossed it at my face.

 

Eight years I was a Spider Slayer of the Most Fearful Order.

 

For my second half of college I moved to small-town Oregon

where the weather was wild and the creatures wilder.

I was reminded how to fall in love with the little things

with their unknowable thoughts and simple purposes,

and I, Spider Slayer, after for so long having frozen stiff against the eight-legged

finally melted to understand them as victims of a father’s poor choice, just like me.

 

Today I am Mother of Jumpers.

Clover and Sorrel admire each other from their separate homes,

friendly if not somewhat grumpy when bothered like the rest of us.

Ghost is a more difficult little guy, having disappeared

into the window for three days before reemerging like a certain well-worshipped-someone,

dusty, confused, and clutching to my finger like a newborn babe.

 

I collect their little molted hats in a cup as I watch them grow, careful not to let them disappear at a careless breath.

 

(Hour 8)

Prompt Eight – The African Sky

Prompt 8 = Image

 

The African Sky

 

Lying flat on our backs under the Milky Way

Half asleep, I hear you say,

‘Can anything be vaster than this sky?’

We looked up together, hands clasped tight.

At the open, silken, endless, night

Where diamonds fly to after they die.

 

Our campfire crackles and casts a glow

on eager faces, sleepy a while ago

Its light vying with the brightness above.

‘It’s our very own canopy,’ I said

As I nestled back against his head

And the African Sky blessed our love.

 

 

 

Summer Dream

Soft breeze plays gently with my hair.

I close my eyes and imagine your hands

brushing through the strands.

The rustling of leaves in the wind whisper faintly,

a reminder of your low melodic voice in my ear,

breath tickling my neck.

The sun behind me warms my back,

embracing it with sweet gentle heat,

much like your arm resting easily in the same spot.

But a bright summer day can never compare

to the real you,

to your light,

or your touch,

to a dream no longer there.

Grief

When I look up,

I know you are here, there, and everywhere

I see you

In the silence of the dark night,

In the light of the stars

In the shape of the moon

In the spark of the fire

In the wave of the wind in the trees

In my dreams, when you appear.

 

You have never left this earth

Even though your physical body did.

I feel your presence everywhere.

 

I  know we are small creatures

On this gigantic round ball called earth

 

When I look up,

I think….

We are all just like sand particles on the beach of life

 

Particles that shine in the sunlight

and are warm to the touch

together, surviving near the beauty of water

Insignificant on our own, but powerful together

 

When I look up,

I miss you, and yet, I see you here, there and everywhere.

 

“A spark is aching for the light” (Hour 8: Song Prompt)

in the dark of the night

my heart aches for the anonymous.

uncertainty looms freely at night:

what doesn’t steal at this hour?

even the wind covets the mortals’

treasure: tiny possession of air-

breathe, the underrated end to all.

but we’ll all pretend we’re ignorant

of this knowledge though my Mama’s

eye tells me that she’d wander one 

day in the dark in search of the hideout

of rest; only she dumbly reveals to me

the charity that death might offer.

even though this might be true,

i hear the anonymous whisper

“search within, a spark is aching

for the light”. Oh, my dear mother,

do wait for your glorious fruits.

Hour Eight: Cellina

Patience, like dawn, is a crawl, an arising, a long exhale.

One note at a time, I inch closer, stroking her hollow just so,

Enchanting the air, thrilling fingers, ears, tremulous vibrato,

Sweetening cilia, like swaying heather among the zephyrs,

Soft, I treble climb down her neck, sliding past her hips, floating,

Anchorless over the wires, close to the bridge, then retreating,

a gallant glissade, resonant in widening daylight, a tuneful opening.

If only she’d sing for me, if only I could master her, make her mine.