The Poetry Marathon

It’s So Simple

In my young days, my new days
All is simple and clear.
Sunrise is proclaimed by the sun moving up in the sky.
Moving so carefully to just touch my pillow.
My toy bear falls to the floor because that is the way.
When things fall, they go down.

Sometimes in the morning I see
The moon, worn down to a sliver,
Creeping to go down under the earth.
I know the moon is the brightest,
For when the sun is out
I can sometimes see the moon.
But when the moon is out,
the sun is nowhere.

I think the meadow behind my house
Is on a flat conveyer belt, like the one in Safeway.
When I walk down the path, trees that were distant
are clearer and closer.

I’m so glad with my life.
And I cherish the thought that
Mommy and Daddy will be with me
Forever.

Gone But Never Forgotten – A Haiku

Mom passed in July.

Her apartment is now bare,

And she is at peace.

Hour 6 text prompt – Over the edge, over again

I had a dream of A’Tuin

The great turtle flying through space

I peered over the edge and over again,

The underside of the disc

Expecting desolation

A smooth platform to ease the labors

Of four colossal elephants spinning

Our great disc

Instead it was breathtaking

A whole new world to explore.

Vibrant, verdant, vivacious

So many colors I had never seen

And gargantuan beasts beneath the disc dream

Should I travel there again I’ll be sure to take notes

About the creatures and inhabitants

Spun secretly beneath the disc

And swept around by the elephant trunks

Alas I woke too soon

We Dance

We Dance

 

We dance for the universe

to hear our prayers

to bring us healing

and self empowerment

to ourselves.

 

The colors and bells

mingle to create

a cleansing

and energizing aura

as the drums emphasize

the songs story.

 

it may look like fancy twirls,

fluffy feathers and colorful beads.

In the midst of it all,

the dances we do

have a purpose.

 

We are retelling

our sacred stories with you.

The screaming you hear

is in a language that is fading.

It is time itself resurfacing

to tell you what history left out

Below the Edge

There’s only water below.
Deep water.
Cold water.
But not bottomless. Not so.

There are mountains under the water.
There are cities.
There are towns
There are great steel shipwright’s yards. And rocket fuel. Watered down

There are angry gods under the water
Down there
Beneath the ground
And we’ve told stories of them since this higher land was found.

I look down from this edge, but no further shall I go
For the roar is the flood,
All the fountains of the great deep are broken
And there is only water below.

Nothing over the end

I am quivering in fear

I am close to the end of the earth and I do not know what lays ahead

The arid desert land is flat

There is nothing beyond the tan sand that stretches across the horizon

I walk closer and closer to the end but yet the end continues without end

Photograph

I cannot focus
I cannot zoom
I cannot lift the lens to my eye
I am committing to memory
All that I take in
Before it fades and changes again
I cannot photograph a memory
I cannot still a sound
I cannot capture a scent
I am spinning
On solid ground

2023 Poetry Marathon — Hour #6 — Haiku

Aromatic tea

Pages rustle in the breeze

Reading in the sun

Prompt #2 The Blank Wall and Ten Years Ago

The Blank Wall

 

With a blank wall

I have nothing to erase

No hurdles to jump over

No hoops to jump through.

Only possibilities.

So I stare and ponder.

Shadows play cat and mouse

On the blank wall in my mind.

Ladders go nowhere

And paths go in circles.

Words and phrases float like dust

Fragments of sentences are only words.

Seeds without packets long to be planted

But my mind is rocky soil.

I chase butterfly dreams with a fish net,

And they escape.

Then I see it—a word like a single step leads to another.

Before I can stop the flow,

My poem is complete.

Cindy Herndon

 

 

 

Ten Years Ago

 

Ten years ago I had no idea

What a broken ankle felt like

Or what limitations it would cause.

I took driving and walking for granted.

 

A decade ago neither of my children were married.

What gave me great joy was not a blip on a radar screen for them

 

Ten years ago I thought I would retire in just one year

But I am still teaching…and loving it.

 

I would not have conceived being in an art gallery

Or published

Or content to be at home creating.

 

Ten years ago I was in the same house

With the same husband

Doing so many of the same things

Thankful and content.

Cindy Herndon

 

HOUR SIX – Shadows

Shadows stretch out long fingers reaching for the dark

hiding our secrets, memories we lock away,

and bury in our hearts.

 

Remembrances cast shadows forward into our lives,

creeping into our consciousness,

when our resistance wanes.

 

When we face the light, those unwelcome echoes from the past,

release their deathlike grip,

allowing us to move on.