Even in Florida
it gets cold enough
this time of year
that the leaves are pulled away
from their trees
with the acorns and pinecones
to explore the world alone.
The trees are left
with Spanish moss
as their only garments.
elderly left naked,
except for the gray in their hair.
The wandering leaves
make a cushion for my barefeet
as the lake fills my thoughts.
The water comes lower than ever now
and the lake looks still, tired.
I
This autumn wind is gold tinted
from the dust, remains
of a dry summer floating
in the air, pulled
into my nostrils, and settling
(for) on windows that have not been
opened in months.
Or maybe the wind is
doing his own interpretation
of the yellow wilting leaves
of trees happily surrendering
to sleep, well-earned, long awaited;
for these aspens have not slept in months.
But it cannot be –
the wind does not sleep and
he does not happily surrender.
II
The leaves are tossed
in a migrating gust
letting go to dance in a breeze
that could take them anywhere.
Let go, for even the ground is better
than someone else’s limbs.
How can these fair-haired leaves
dance freely if someone else
is spinning them?
Say goodbye to your tree.
The restless wind is calling you.
Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/vbenedetti/ on flickr for the photo! Grazie!
It never did rain.
The ferns waited,
their spines hooked
over themselves as they knelt,
trembling and praying
that the sky
would not be afraid
to open up
to them and weep.
They lined themselves in rows,
a whole parrish
clinging to an oak
which could not resist
the pull
of a soft bed.
The resurrection ferns
held their spored breaths,
waiting for the day when
the oak would itself rise.
They repeated their visions
amongst themselves:
the oak will ascend and lead and guide,
pull himself free
of the nails of gravity
and escape death
for he is more than a man.
Yet all kings fall
and the ferns may wander,
seek out their own
source of water.
Or they may be still
kneeling, praying, waiting
for a rain that doesn’t fall.
Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanaia/ for the beautiful photo!
Here’s a little bit of inspiration for today.
One of my favorite Ted Talks of all time:
How many lives can you live?
A poem by Sarah Kay
We
bathed
in amber
last night
getting stuck
with mosquitoes
under an orange sheen
which made things
not illuminated, but
notdark.
So, surrounded
by a personal 11 pm we sat
under a lampshade of notdark
and tried to get our feelings
out.
Even sitting back to back,
empty bookends, we held orange
light between us
a sinister glow.
I could see that nothing hid beneath its gleam,
no beady-eyed monsters lurked
in the harvest colored bushes,
but I could also see only shapes,
as if my eyes were taking silent hours
to adjust to the light on Crescent Road.
That tiny orange kept me from being
moon on a lamppost scared and kept me from seeing
you.
Dry Flies
Ten eyes blink
in an unfamiliar brightness.
You both almost remember
seeing this sun before.
Some time before the darkness,
before you slept with roots and grubs,
before your premature burials,
before the prime number
of years spent waiting.
The temperature is right.
It’s your four minutes, the soil urges.
Take it. Take it.
Seventeen years this moment has
grown and molted, hid and sighed,
waited and waited to sing.
It’s not time to store for winter.
It’s time to leave empty selves behind,
clinging to bark and dust.
It’s time to shed golden skins.
Vines pause their swaying,
mangoes hold their breath,
leaf corpses don’t even rustle.
The dog day is silent.
It’s loud at first, furious and brave,
drunk with the newness of light.
It’s not a matter of legs or violins.
Bodies resound as ribs rub together.
The song becomes a whisper
as you near each other,
gentler, like a snake in the leaves.
It’s no longer for coaxing,
no longer for the eyes of the trees.
Branches are split.
Later, much later,
buttressed trees will burst with children,
nymphs will rain from their twiggy fingers,
speckled-dust life and the promise of song
will fall to a summery, shimmery floor.
But now, it’s not time to store for winter.
Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/ for the photo of “Cicadas” etching by Marilyn McPheron.
The landscape holds the deafening density of memory. The needles of each slash pine burst with the recollection of some childhood experience just on the edge of my mind. Each oak limb twists in the shape of a person long forgotten, whose name I would only recall if someone reminded me. It’s as if the trees and Florida air are storing the memories for me. They are my Giver, coddling reminiscences in case some day I might want them. I’ve seen them all before. Every sabal palm, every old oak, every casaurina. I’ve left pieces of myself in the sap of each tree. They whisper a promise to hold it, to free me, to lighten my load. It is only in this way that I am able to travel. In leaving behind the teenage worries and prepubescent fears, there is room for Thai macaques and Czech bridges. But they are not lost. The Spanish moss dangles with the whispers of elementary school friends. Mistletoe glistens with stolen first kisses. Pepper trees play melodies I know I’ve heard before. Even the formations of clouds seem to materialize into shapes that I’ve seen, in the same sunset, over twenty years ago.
It’s a strange sort of orbit
the moon takes around the earth,
mesmerized by the amount of light the planet can reflect,
the way it shifts and writhes and is still
learning to be comfortable in its skin,
while the moon is only black rock,
the same trapped-oxygen rock
for three and a half billion years.
The moon must be ashamed,
because it always maneuvers
itself in such a way
that one side can’t be seen from earth
and when the sun doesn’t hit
the moon just right,
it rotates, its violet rays
can’t be seen at all.
The Earth has atmospheric clothes
that do their best to keep
its elements stable and it feels
few drops of newness on its crust,
while the moon gets to bathe
in meteor showers, a constant
sprinkling of new elements and it is molded
by each particle of dust that passes.
It’s easier to date moon rocks.
Pieces of my foot
have been falling off for days
small pieces
–hardening themselves
curling to mimic plastic
they boycott the work I force upon them
taking their chances
that seceding from my body will
allow them a better life
they each leave a younger sister
in their place
–tender sprigs of too new life
who yelp each time they are stepped upon
My foot, you see,
is out of place in shoes.
He is used to feeling
free grass between toes
hugged by cold ground
and these boots, well,
they send the skin on my foot
hiking.
When
Even the stars did not know where to stand,
flame filled the void with his partner the frost.
Waiting and teasing, they joined on the brink.
Moving to passionate swirls and then me.
I was alone with a blackness that fell,
speckled by wandering stars. Nothing green
grew. Not one shore, sea, nor cooling grey wave
sang the full song of a dying rich life.
I was alone in the dark, not a sound
reached my new ears and the noise of that drove
me to creation. The sun and the moon,
made from my eyes, from my toes are the trees,
stones from my teeth and my eyelashes, snakes.
Now,
I am not lonely, but I was the first.