The Poetry Marathon

the world

what is home to the falcon

the nest where it was raised

or the vastness of the sky?

 

what is home the snail

the fern in which it

leaves behind trails

of glimmering mucus

or the comfort

of the house grown out of its back?

 

what is home to the salmon

the ocean it spends its entire life traversing

or the river it was born in

to which it inevitably returns to die?

 

what is home to the gazelle

always on the move for better pastures?

the plains the plains the plains

 

you ask me where I am most at home and I tell you

in airports, the sky so close and

only some baggage claims away

 

the house I grew up in but also

the shell I grew for myself over years

tent of familiarity I can pitch wherever I go

 

the country I spent my life in but

also the country I was born in, the one

I know I will one day return to to die

 

you ask me where I am home

and I tell you the plains

the world is my savannah and it all looks the same

I will settle down where there is water

and move on when there is none

 

where am I at home?

the world, the world, the world.

 

Ode to 2020

Holy shit…
What a year you were
After 2016
I thought I had seen a terrible year
I was wrong

Some want to extract you from their history
To strike you from the record
I can’t say I haven’t thought of it
But still, you happened
And we have to live with that

So many you took
Not just lives
But jobs, freedoms, relationships
Time together, time missed
Time never to be spent again

Pressure pushed our flaws to the surface
Our festering wounds
Still aching
Were relit and reopened
Hoping that maybe it would be different this time

You didn’t end
You have yet to end
I can’t get out of 2020
Half a year apart, still
I feel your grip

Hour 24_at home

Why do you ask this?
Prompting me to end
on a sad note.
Since the accident,
since leaving Viet Nam,
the difficult sojourn with my sister,
the surgeon-inflicted injury –
there is no place
no at home
to be in.

This body
trusty capable helper
a battlefield of repeated assault.
Heart and mind
bruised
lost.
So much to re-learn;
how and who to be
in a re-imagining world.

But there is this:
the gentle rise and fall
of breath
nourishing, sustaining
befriending
In stillness or flurry,
constant
Connecting me
with all of creation

This,
this is where I am most
at home.

Hour Twenty-Four, Home

Farmhouse Kitchen

The place I feel most at home in all the world
I’m sitting inside right now.
The kitchen in our home in a small midwestern
American town is my favorite place to be.

Here, I work Sunday puzzles with my son,
then create a brunch for us all.
Here, I write in the dappled morning light with my daughter,
birdsong trilling through the window behind us.
Here, I create meal plans, menus, and grocery lists,
store those groceries and cook those meals.
Here, the seedlings that will later fill our gardens,
feed our family, grow upon wide windowsills.
Here, we gather for meals, games, jokes, stories, and songs,
any time night or day.

All traffic in our home leads here,
and here, in farmhouse coziness
here is where I will stay.

Hour 20 (2021)

I love the simplicity
of a late night walk.
I just need to remember:
My keys, to hold between my fingers
My pepper spray
A flashlight
My cell phone, fully charged.
Running shoes with tight laces
A knife
And my ID just in case
they need to identify my body.
That’s all.
So simple walking at night
as a woman.

Hour 24 – Home (text prompt)

I was asked

What is home to me

And I wanted to cry

Because, you see,

I feel I have no home

I don’t feel welcome

With friends or family

I don’t know how come,

But something feels empty

There are moments of course

Where things feel okay

But they are hollow or worse

Tainted by truth behind that day

The closest I get

To home is I guess…

When my cat comes over

And lays down upon my chest.

My Kind of People

I feel at home with …

Those that get excited about
The changes of the seasons
The sound of the ocean
The smell of a sudden shower
And watching the heavens

I feel at home with …

Those that choose to be happy right now
Not waiting until things get easier
Not caught-up in the strife of the day
Not swayed by how difficult things are
But go out and dance in the rain

I feel at home with …

Those that choose to see joy
To banish sorrow
To note the good in everything
To strive to find their own contentment
No matter what life throws in their path

17 Emotions

GOD creates emotions,
We feel them every day,
GOD secretly placed inside us,
We show them every day.

Some we Understand and some we don’t,
Some have roots buried in the soul.
Some we play with and Some play with us,
Some have no face at all

GOD creates emotions,
We feel them every day,

We Feel Good, We Feel Bad,
In Sorrow, Tears We’ve Had.
Our tears can flood the Desert,
that’s the power of emotions.

GOD creates emotions,
We feel them every day.

We laugh with the tides of waves,
Even the fishes feel shy,
A smile on each face, even the dead smile in their Graves,
that’s the power of emotions,

GOD creates emotions,
We feel them every day.

In Anger we shout like monsters,
All emotions goes in motion,
No Illusionist, can make it disappear,
That’s the power of emotions.

GOD creates emotions,
We feel them every day.

Hey, what is happening?
When you don’t feel one of them today, where is the smile on our friends?
We need to feel the bliss; We need to feel the pain,
We need smiling friends to bring back my fun.

GOD creates emotions,
We need to feel them every day.

Copyright © 2021 Roxann Lawrence ( Poetessrock)

21~24

I Am Most

In My Own Skin

No Matter

Which Ocean

I Frolic In

I’m Home

The arms of nature is where I live

A loving cocoon 

No ridicule 

No scorn

 

Things the way they used to be

The forests mist rise at first light

A wolfs sweet song 

The bats swift flight 

 

Traversing the rapids

Of the mighty Grand Canyon

Visiting tribes

In the Amazon

Into a canoe I’d happily glide

Paddle to paradise to see all the 

Brightly colored birds

Breath a huge palm tree I’d sit

 

Flirt with turtles and gators and

Little black squirrels 

Grow flowers galore

And swim in the sea

 

Watch dolphins play 

And manta’s fly 

The water to them

So much like the sky

 

Then when the sun starts

To dip it’s bright crown 

Beyond the horizon 

To sleep for the night

I’d tuck in my wings

To fly steadily home to the nest 

Where’s he’s waiting patiently for me

The Hawk calls me home 

That’s where I will be