The maple seeds met the branches of the dead
On their way to the Earth.
Tumbling and falling through the leafless and lifeless
Creating skittering tones like skeleton fingertips
Drumming on the hollows of trees.
Maple Seed Music
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Tag Archives: Poetry
The Strong Ones Break
The strong ones are the ones who have
Learned how to break.
From break-ups to breakdowns
To break-ins
Where people have unexpectedly stolen
Our hearts.
We have felt ourselves crumble
Into dust.
At risk of being blown away
By the changing winds of our lives.
Yet time and time again we
Glue ourselves back together again.
Hope, faith, and tears create an emotional cement
That strengthens the remaining cracks in our psyches.
We rise over and over again from the ashes like Phoenixes.
Reborn, recreated and restored.
The Old Tree
You’re not very pretty
Said little girl to tree
Looking at the hardened buds
That’s all that she could see.
They surveyed one another
In the warm spring air.
The tree old and grizzled
While the girl was splendid and fair.
There is magic yet within me
The ancient wood explained
All I need is the warming sun
And the chilly April rain.
The little girl scoffed and left
Not believing what the tree said
To the girl, the tree didn’t resemble life
The bare branches to her looked dead.
But when she returned in three days’ time
A fantastical sight did she behold
The tree in wondrous splendor
It left her speechless to behold
For each of the buds on the tree had burst
Into blossoms rosy and white
Its secret revealed for all to see
She was awestruck at the sight
Resting her head on the trunk
She silently apologized
The tree in response told her instead
Let this lesson make you wise.
Do not judge by appearance alone
You never know what’s inside
Even the ugliest of forms
Have beauty trapped inside.
And while this is old adage true
The reverse can also be
Beauty can hide the ugliness
It’s all in the way you see.
If It Fits, I Sits
I got a box in the mail
Just the other day
Scissors revealed the contents
The rest was thrown away.
Just as I thought it was finished
That it was all said and done.
A loud whiny meow from behind me came
And cat and box become one.
When he first started to climb
Into the box so small
I had to stand and laugh at him
He couldn’t fit at all.
But then the cat gave me look
And though no words were said
He communicated that he would fit
And the box would be his new bed.
I watched his bones begin to melt
He impossibly liquefied
And as the cat scrunched himself in
I laugh until I cried.
The moral of the story
Before this poem, I quit
In cat-dom it’s entirely true
If a cat fits, it sits.
The Kite Festival
Ribbons dance in the breeze.
Fluttering and rippling
Attached to kites that
Dance and twirl
All on the same wind
A sky full of every color
The world has ever seen
And some they haven’t.
And underneath children
Twirl and flutter around
Faces full of smiles
As squeals and giggles join the
Kites in the sky.
Hello, Old Friend
Movement outside the window
Catches my eye.
A flick of a tail on a suspended
String of lights
Hello old friend,
You survived another winter
And have returned.
Another nest to build.
Another family to raise
Under the protective eaves
Of my porch.
My heart smiles.
Welcome home.
Life’s Rubber Band
Major life events become
Rubber bands wrapped
Around our life time.
As time passes
It can stretch
To make it
Seem like forever
And when it relaxes
The event
No matter how long ago
Seems like mere days
Have gone by.
Years may pass
Before the band
Loses its elasticity
And the event eases
Itself into real time.
Until that happens,
Humanity is stuck
In a limbo of
Push and pull
On our conscious memory.
Time seems to move fast
And slow all at once.
And we just drift with it.
One year ago today, my mom went into the hospital, for what would turn out to be, the last time. It’s another one of those firsts that I’ve had to face since my mom passed. I’m running out of time to have those first moments though. In five weeks it will be a year since she died. That in and of itself seems impossible. That day, her last in this house seems so long ago, yet it seems like it happened last week — such a strange sensation, to bounce from one distance of time to another. Somehow, I’ve found the strength to get through my first summer without her, the first fall, her birthday, holidays, all without her here. There have been moments of unbelievable pain and moments of peace where I’ve found some kind of acceptance. Even though pure acceptance has yet to materialize in my heart, I still can’t believe she’s gone and in some ways, now that so much time has passed, I can. And back and forth I go.
Mother Nature Laughed
Two days ago it was
Enjoyable enough to sit outside,
T-shirt bared arms warming in the
Early spring sun.
Buds starting to pop
On branches.
Trees and humans alike
Foolishly thinking
Winter was finally over.
Somewhere
Mother Nature
Threw her head back
And laughed.
Understanding
Stretching of the mind
To accommodate new ways
To look at the world.
Love
The overwhelming
Feeling that forever melts
All hearts and reason.