Day 30 Prompt: Bury the _______

“Bury the Seed”

Bury the seed
let it slide down your palm
land softly under this tilled soil
We will water it
or not
The seed will sprout
or not
And if it sprouts
we’ll watch as it grows
we’ll learn the longevity of green
We will tend it
or not
We will eat from it
or not
But bury this seed
only then will we see
only then will we know
or not.

Day 29 Prompt: What nobody knows

“Under Trees”

Hours spent under trees
fingers finding moss, mixing dirt, digging roots
Lifetimes lived over clouds, through wormholes, lost under dreaming
Names they never called me, wisdom I couldn’t buy
Silence grew beside me.

Day 27 Prompt: Looking back

The rock spontaneously kicked up by my feet rolls back, repelled by the upward curve of the road rising higher. My view is blocked when I pause, the hill, steep, casting shadows in the orange light sinking beyond.

and I look back

The dust is still settling from those last footprints, fading the further I look down the road I’ve come. There are smaller bluffs beside bends still highlighted by the setting sun. Soon the shadows even disappear as I can almost glimpse the beginning of my journey–so clear now–every sight condensed to summarized memory: a single stream of feeling, knowing, and understanding.

I blink, the light becomes flat, dark, and the breeze spins me back around. Under the light of stars, I trudge up the hill. Beside me, the moon rises.

Day 26 Prompt:  take a word or two invented by William Shakespeare, make it the title of your poem, and write your poem

“Lackluster”

She shone
a lackluster opal
framed in stars
too tired to shine brightly
Galactic winds blew
too weak to spin
static planets further
So the tides came calmer
and too soon dried up
salt stacking on sand
on forgotten ocean beds
If you noticed
you didn’t cry
for you, too, had given up
your own gravity
And the collective
just sat, or slept away
beneath fading light
too long to wonder why.

Day 25 Prompt: Across the sea

“Return Me”

Return me across the sea
Which sea?
to the place my heart escaped
to the sorrow I am helpless helping
to the dreams I want to spend
to the mysteries I left behind
to the knowledge I’ll never know
I’ll work River’s daily due
to bring that space to me.

Day 24 Prompt: Moment

“A Flicker in the Moment”

Stars flickered like fire
like a warmth that wasn’t there
They spoke silence in that stillness
fading
behind the illusion of nowhere
But the blowing wind breathed softness
and the quiet settled in my bones
beneath that blanket, gifted warmth
quiet nothing, knowing wholeness
a moment not alone.

Day 23 Prompt: Nature

“The Nature of It”

How the gales force us
inside, and the sun
brings us out again
How the earth shakes
beneath our dreams
and the sky drowns
our rising
But the trees, too,
feel these shifts
and eyes burrowed
under limbs
watch the sun
fall behind each
horizon
And there is green
that waits an age
to quench that promised thirst.
We have killed the thundering
of herds, and left space
only for hooves climbing
into the clouds
We’ve built our own wings
in jealousy of feathers
hatched from the dawn of
fire and finite cells
We have etched ourselves
in nature
weaving ribbons
through her hair
like children pulling
legs from live frogs.

Day 21 Prompt: What you are and/or What you are not

“You are”

You are the Knower–
the concrete against which
a thousand dark sparks
of dirt, dust, and sand
have slammed themselves against
over and over and over
battered by the wind
attacked by movement above,
below, and pulled–
You are not the tide
the gravity of the breeze
the aging of soil
nor the weather that
blooms and kills
the color around you.

You are beyond what
has been, will be, and
is manifesting,
and you will find
yourself, again.

Day 20 Prompt: My ___, the ____

“My Cat, the Dog”

My cat, the dog
the feline of
puppy love
of wagging tails
cleaning tongues
back-laying
and belly rubs

She is the ultimate
puppy-cat
the best of the
domestic pet
And I’ll never know
the softness of love
like I do
from Ripley cat.