Poem-a-day catchup

[greenstorm]

Been posting to fb, haven't got over here for awhile. Busy in the garden, busy writing poems. Obvs posting more than one per day.

#17 With apologies to owners of other pets

We’re a tool-using species
Wherever we fall short we invent a tool
Cold?
Invent clothes.
Hungry?
Invent fire.
Memory bad?
Invent writing.
Angry?
Invent guns.
Need love?
Invent dogs.

#18 My dog says no

So gracefully.
First it’s a sidelong glance
And she casually looks away
Like a high society crowd
At an off-colour joke
As if she’s embarrassed at my bad manners
For insisting so.

When I persist a yawn comes next
One or two
Unstifled
A host at the end of an overlong visit
Hoping guests will take the hint.

Still trying for politeness
She looks back over her shoulder
I’ve done the same, trapped on the sidewalk
In a chance encounter
Eyes anywhere else
To signal a complete lack of interest.
The cold shoulder transcends species

But still I persist
And, forced to forsake delicacy,
She lifts her lips with a breath of rumble.
The growl starts,
Then after a second she stops
To appraise the situation.
Has this boorish human received the message?

The next growl is louder
Straightforward
Unmistakable
Even the deaf cat can feel the threat.
Whatever was driving me,
The inconsiderate human,
That low sound and its teeth
Exposed like a gun under a suitjacket
Drive me backwards
My gut forced to respect
Her boundary.

#19 Afternoon nap

Sleep ebbs
Whispers away like the gentlest tide
On the calmest sandy beach.
Weightless underwater
Each limb is caught once more by the blanket of gravity
And pulled downward into the caress of the bed.
The same raindrops that lulled a short time earlier
Still patter in slow rhythm
Allowing only muted sunlight
To carry in birdsong.
Eyelids that earlier felt so heavy
Have been refreshed
And gather in light,
Gather in shade.
No one knows I’m awake
So there’s no need to move
From this pocket of body-warmth and softness.
Whatever else the day will demand of me
I am all stillness now
My consciousness merely a vessel
To accept the softness of bed
The embrace of gravity
And the sound of rain.

#20 Raised by wolves

You’re resplendent in your received wisdom
It suits you
Right, wrong,
Even the certainty of shame.
It took slow painful stitches
To mend and re-mend my own threadbare garment
Yours was gifted by a village
But I made mine
Alone
With my own two hands.

#21

A circle inside a circle,
One black, one blue.
I’m always falling into them so I avoid mirrors.
The wet orb of my eyes have no story
Or every story
And their silence catches me every time.
Minutes pass.
Hours?
Contact breaks
It’s only then that I notice a piece of straw
Perched on my hair,
Legacy of hunting goose eggs outside.
In fact, outside is written all over my face
Each sky-facing curve reddening into brown
Beneath days of sun’s caress.
Years of story are written
In brown sunmarks, surfacing in spring,
Orc-spots on cheekbone and now forehead
A story of freedom from offices
Of open sky and sunshine
Of summer memories of sweat and dirt
As an object lesson for children
Pointed to in the street,
“If you don’t study hard
You’ll work in the dirt like that.”
Sunmarks, orc-spots, story
Of a life spent with flowers. I’ll take it
And revel in the gift.
Few silver hairs catch the light
My body marked by my mother
And her mother before her:
I used to wish for white hair but now
I take my body into my own hands
And behind the crescent of native brown and so little silver
Jumbles a blue and green waterfall
Kinked from the ever-present braid
But flowing loose now
Almost as bright
As my heart when I see it.
Blue.
Green.
My colours.
My hair is my forest-mark
And those who see me set me apart
Judging me this or that for it
And so save me the trouble of judging them.
I have green but no silver
Yet age does mark me
I always wondered how the path of my life
Would eventually settle into my face
I imagined laugh-lines around the eyes
Not so much this heaviness around my jaw
Clenched, too often,
Too often.
Lips have thinned
Living with the habitual pressure
Of keeping my voice inside.
Still there has been laughter
And softness comes to the bottoms of my cheeks
Highlighted lines around eyes
My eyes
A circle inside a circle
One black, one blue
Reading stories in the mirror.

#22 We called it a relationship

Two against my mind!
The battle lines are drawn
Unruly, fractious, dangerous
We’ll tame it or go down trying
A mind is a dangerous thing
When it won’t listen,
When it lashes out in fear
And defies reason.
No wonder we armour up
Again and again
Take our sharpest weapons
To put it down.
We’ve fought this battle so many times
And we tire
But we’ll never surrender
My mind can’t be free of us
We’ll end it or go down trying.

#23

I’ve turned this corner every day, every spring, for six years
And still somehow today I’m stopped
By every shape of fuzzy willow blossom:
Large, small, long, round
Yellow, grey, green
The ditch is full of them
Stems red, yellow, brown, almost purple
Thick, thin
And that riot of blossom.
Who knew the world to be so big?

#24

You're always lightning out of a clear sky
And me?
I'm always standing in fields
Holding a lightning-rod.

#25 PATHOLOGICAL

There’s one logical choice to make
But I don’t, and you never believe
I choose the best path I can take

I seem to be quirky or fake
See what everyone else can achieve?
There’s one logical choice to make

If I chose another I’d break
There is more to me than you perceive
I choose the best path I can take

It’s not duty I try to escape
I have no intent to deceive
There’s one logical choice to make

Though your judgement brings me heartache
And though there are days when I grieve
I choose the best path I can take

Please never make the mistake
Of discounting what you can’t conceive
There’s one logical choice to make
I choose the best path I can take

Inspired by a post from Kristy Forbes