Catching up on poem-a-days

[greenstorm]

#5 Neurobotanical

Brains tilt in favour of similarity
At least most of them
At least so I’m told
The bandwagon effect they call it
I can see you all on the bandwagon
It’s a party
You’re talking about that Marvel movie
Or your kids’ soccer practice

It wasn’t lightning that struck me
When I learned Erasmus Darwin wrote poems to plants
And epics about evolution
It was a very small bandwagon:
Nikolai Vavilov searching the world, not for a lover
But for his plant families
Rowan White singing to her seeds
And hearing them sing back.

Those of us whose brains don’t tilt
Like flowers opening towards the mass of common interest
But instead stay rooted in our own domains
Take heart!
We can still be struck,
Unexpecting,
Unaware,
By a tiny bandwagon of our rare kindred.
It feels like lightning and then
There has never been a better party.

Written with warm thoughts to William Schlegel.

#6 Probably normal

I don’t cook with molasses in January
Not without warming it up first
I save my patience
To lift protesting muscles
One at a time
To soothe my mind as I rest again
Caged heart fighting with rib-caged lungs
It’s a draw
Gradually they quiet
Time to stand, to
Lift protesting muscles
One at a time.
Take a step. Rattle the cage.
Lift a bucket. Rattle the cage.
Combatants awake.
Heart thunders into motion, lungs heave themselves into the ring.
Time for another round.
I sit.
I wait for them to quiet.
I draw on my hoarded patience.

#7 A life where I say no to everything

The woman who never said no suggested
That when I was three
I said no too many times
So Dad stopped loving me.

The lovers who never said no suggested
That I couldn't love them:
I said no to the wrong things
So they stopped loving me.

The heart which always said no broke
And, heartless
"No" the only word on my lips
I said “no”
to saying no
to myself.