4/15 Procrastination

Two days late – three if you count today – the words
refusing to come out and play – they gather in my head,
line up, fall apart, move in circles, taunt me
or maybe that’s just my read.  Perhaps
they are pleading to move from concept
to concrete and it is I who is taunting – leaving
my pen in its holder, my notebook closed,
its blank pages as lonely as a sentence with no home.

4/14

The tornado watch dissipated at three a.m. with nothing
to report, the energy evaporating like poems
that refuse to be written.  I was asleep, then, and did not
notice because I was dreaming of a flooded kitchen caused
by contractors who brought their whole family, who
shrugged and said it was not an emergency as the liquid
waterfalled off the counter, puddled in corners, flowed
out the door.  My husband, doing work on his computer,
also conveyed a total lack of urgency.

Urgency is probably over rated anyways.

Things seems to go their own way no matter my concerted
interventions, going with the flow (see above –  a message?)
Yesterday there were no leaves on bare branches;
this morning the rain has brought green everywhere,
the cherry’s pink buds bursting, the pansies’ smiling faces
glistening in the rays of a sun rising in the East scattering
gold clouds and dark shadows.  Everything cycles.  I
sip my coffee, watch invisible wind make its presence perceptible,
listen to the dog snoring and move to meet the day.

for 4/13 Red Rock Walker

The red rocks sit on my front porch
where they click together spitting sparks
into the dark sky, chattering
like wild monkeys.  At night they tumble
into my dreams to spill our their stories,
and by day they whisper secrets
to anyone who will listen.  They traveled here,
as rocks will, pretending to be solitary sentinels
in the distance, rolling at the side of the road as if
kicked by passing tires, living in gardens
watching for the next opportunity to move.  Now
they call incessantly with my own voice,
the one I had as a child.  My neighbors believe
I have somehow summoned early fireflies, peer
covertly as I wash the rocks each morning, chasing
off the dust of their travels, praying they will return
to their homes without hinted requirements.  Once
I hit one with a hammer, its pieces scattering
across the concrete step, then watched as it all
coalesced again into a form that couldn’t be crushed,
like a person with a healed broken heart.  For now
I place them in my flower beds, always aware
of their presence, knowing they can see through walls,
seep under doors like dust, wait in corners for the moment
I will take the mantle of my name and lead them.