Hello, my friends!

Since you guys really seemed to enjoy my last poetry post, I thought it was about time for another one! One of these days I’m going to put these poems and a bunch more into another book, but for now, enjoy some pretty words and pictures here on my blog.

Today I have six new poems: some are stories, some are thoughts, some are from my own experiences, and all are for you. 🙂 Have fun!

A note before we begin: if you enjoy this post and want to read more of my poetry, click the links below to see/shop my books. Okay, now let’s get started! 

envelope walk

imagine one day you find a path
wedged between thick oaks and
sweet, sharp blackberries
breathing a threat and a promise
from the messy cream flowers.
you pluck the promise for a crown,
march past the threat,
and… ah!
here are splendid spaces:
knotted roots and
weed-green carpets,
sumptuously deep and
starred with petals.
here the sunlight bows its head,
a shower of honeyed hair
streaming, sheet-like,
around its secret business of
folding up this envelope of hidden sights,
sealed for you alone.
for when another comes,
(if indeed, you are not the only one
to chart these lavish constellations),
by then the golden air will have
turned silver,
blossoms fallen, and
new leaves spun of glossy silk.
even now, the open breeze
piles up a crisp covering
of last-year’s leaves
on the angled rock beneath your feet.
only you have seen this page of story,
written in birdsong and
honeysuckle fragrance.
so you fold the memory carefully,
creasing the thick paper
and sliding it deep into
your smallest pocket.
you will forget, of course,
to take it out before the wash,
until one day,
a sweet, sharp smell
tugs at a crumpled corner,
and you lift it
out of that sun-sealed envelope
and stare at the soft and
faded world inside:
radiant and waiting and
yours.

slanted

why do we live our lives
slanted,
halfway horizontal
in our narrow-eyed haste
to arrive?
where?
who knows – that is
the grand question. 
but it is not here.
why? 
because the closer you get 
to the edge of the earth,
the more it curves away
like the tempting smile of
a rainbow.
surely, the end of this race
is just over that hill…
meanwhile,
the children look up
from building mud pies by the road,
sturdy and straight and sitting with
small toes dug into the earth.
they watch us running,
shoulders pointed,
off into growing up
and getting married
and having kids
and growing old.
but mud pies take a long time to bake,
and meanwhile you can sit happily
in the dirt and whisper secrets
and watch the butterflies and birds
and be.
maybe the mud pies will crack
and you will have to start again.
no matter.
time, like air,
keeps on refilling.

present poem

brown and green
dried bouquet of
weeds and vines
hanging downward,
swinging to the steps of my
snug, soft sneakers
with two mud splatters
on the right one
that i still haven’t washed away.
//
candles glowing like yellow stars
in the white house windows
against a pale, dimming sky.
//
spreading fields of once-green,
now winter-dulled
to a neutral shade of
almost-hopeless beige,
the color of a tan peacoat
shaggy on the sleeping hills.
//
cold twilight air of
january evenings
colorless but
scrubbing pink into
numb cheeks and ears.
//
gravels,
well-worn and powdered
from the rubber pestle of
heavy tires.
//
a clear orange and blue sunset,
so pure the colors never mix to
brown or green.

spirit animal

if i were an animal,
i think i’d be
a little, brown sparrow.
not flashy or extravagant to look at,
but sweet and simple to behold.
cheerful,
friendly,
harmless,
if a bit bothersome.
like the songbirds,
i love to make music and to sing;
to be among my friends,
laughing and chattering and happy.
but best of all,
when i want to,
i can escape the ground and fly
up and up until
my head is in the clouds,
exploring sun and sky and stars.
because, like the sparrows,
i am at home
in the heavens and the earth.

truth

the truth is that
you are part of
a wild and beautiful tale
that wraps about your arms
and weaves through your legs,
that spirals and sways
and spins you out into the world,
clothed in tearstains
and laughter.
let the truth you have
seen,
heard,
felt,
known,
shine from your eyes,
so that when they look at you,
all the lies
just
die.

astronaut

i went out of this world, once –
my body shaking and shuddering
at the speed with which
i was leaving my life behind.
for a while i could not
uncover my tight-closed eyes
as i thought,
i have been trained
but not prepared.
and nothing –
no pictures, no videos, no movies –
could prepare me for
what i saw.
i opened my eyes and hoped
i would never have to close them again.
there the world floated,
round and swirling like
a great, glass marble
within my reach.
there the stars lay
thick as dust
on the black, bottomless floor
beneath me,
as if some great, glass door
had shattered into an infinity
of sharp, sparkling pieces.
it was, i realized,
the door of what I used to know.
my life before
was an illusion –
i had thought i was mighty, once,
important and in control.
how foolish!
how laughable!
that a smaller-than-an-atom
human being
should think of himself so!
i pressed my face to the pane
and burned the memory of
all that i had ever known and more
reduced to
a misty kickball in a
diamond-grass field.
there was something greater,
i felt it.
there must be something greater
than ourselves.
it’s easy to forget when we walk
as giants on the earth.
but it is not so easy
when the world is smaller than anything
and the universe is so very,
very
large.

______

***Allison***