Hour 20
Where I need to be,
The moment I was made for,
Exactly enough.
Hour Twenty-One: Running
Running into an old friend at the local coffee house,
we exchanged updates, what the kids are doing,
the old man’s work and music, jobs, and housing.
“Do you run any more?”
Marathons, half marathons, 10-k’s, 5-k’s, mud runs, fun runs,
I used to do them all, just because I could.
My knees held out, but my ankles caved from soccer, and
then I turned to a low-impact lifestyle.
“No, I stopped running a while back. I teach yoga now.”
And we chatted about the studio, my writing, teaching, volunteering,
return to school–only 100 hours left for my practicum–and the dogs,
cat, travels, certifications, and businesses.
“Wow! You’re so busy.
Even back then, you coached soccer, volunteered at school,
headed the art program, managed two club teams, ran a law office and
two kids to soccer games up and down the coast.
And then, didn’t you take your parents in?”
“I did. They lived with me for ten years before they died.”
And now, just the two of us, the cat, the dogs, and my ten jobs, in a two-bedroom
above my yoga studio, one of three businesses I run…
Busy-ness, so my therapists say, is a symptom of trauma.
I guess I’m still running.
#Prompt 21 – 2023
NOTE: Contains swearing.
Getting Old
Running days now over
They have been for a bit
I can’t even remember the last time
I subjected my body to all that sh*t
To be utterly honest
I was never that big a fan
If I saw the bus coming down the street
I’d wait for the next one was always a failsafe plan
The children used to keep me fit
Running about after them
But once that spread their wings and flew
I knew I’d never do it ever again
I’m more a couch potato these days
My lifestyle choice is cunning
I use my age and my advancing years
As the perfect excuse … to never again go running
2023 Poem Four
I Once Again Write About The Sky
I haven’t seen the stars in almost four months.
At least not ones that are actually in the sky above me in that moment.
Instead of I see miles of orange stretching across the horizon.
Not that delicious blood orange waves of
the sun tucking in for the night.
No, it’s that manufactured knock off of flames
covering the horizon until the sun returns again.
I’ve never gone this long without
the North Star pointing me home.
Too many people I don’t know can
see me surrounded by these streetlights and
I hear too many tires traveling across pavement.
It feels cruel that I can accidentally make eye contact with my neighbor
from each of our own living rooms yet
the universe gets hidden by an inventor long gone.
Marathoner
Running shoes is what I need now
Here is the footrace I’ve waited for.
Watch me on the marathon of your favorite
Investing time and energy –
I’ll have the great force to push the door open.
Whether it is a long or short-distance running
I’m ready to make the ground running.
Hour 18
after the storm
an eerie silence
in the birdhouse
Tainted Roots
Every time I begin to write about my ancestors I end up empty.
I appreciate the skills they’ve passed down.
I have their strong hands,
catered for creation,
I know the history of their endurance
But their silence came at cost:
the trauma guided them,
the privilege enabled them,
the blood elevated them.
The greatest burdens they’ve left me either drip in malignant pride
or a willing ignorance of a devastating magnitude.
(Hour 20)
Sterilization was the Plan
Sterilization was the Plan
Natasha Romanoff.
You know that name,
the spy from Marvel.
She saw herself as a monster
because she was sterilized.
The question is:
Did you know
Indigenous females
were also sterilized?
The brown skin,
black hair,
“foreign” language
and pagan beliefs
were not ideal.
Native Americans
were still seen as “dirt”
and the less there were
the better it was.
Paper ads tricked
soon to be mothers
and females to gather
for free screenings.
The staff looked at them
as heathens, disgusting creatures
that needs to wiped off the planet.
Procedures without consent happened.
Thousands of Native ladies
were no longer “women”.
They were now sterilized
and could not bare children.
Future torch bearers
for our cultures were
whisked away in mere seconds.
Hour 19
Rakshabandhan
the blue moon smiles
in a saffron sky