10/23/23
There’s a sleeping lady in the moon And i'm sitting on my childhood roof And if i had any room in my heart I’d tell you about things i used to do When i really didnt have a reason Stars might fall across her body Can you see her Can you tell me If she is smiling? For a moment she was blue And there is no reason I fight And there is no reason Now But late and soon On my childhood roof When before I looked for a fight maybe Sitting out there And now I have none And want none And if she is blue for a moment I know it’s not Cant be Once I climbed a tree A candle-lit tree On a ridge An ancient grassy ridge Really its a hillside A knoll And in it I prayed As friends and family gathered below I prayed to bring our energy together Something had happened and someone was lost All I prayed for Was to feel everyones sadness inside of me While I perched in that candle lit tree And looked down at a crowd Watching a beautiful concert A band who played before a projection of shipmasts And there in the plastic candle-lit tree That was truly a magnificent Old, partly-spongy oak trunk Those friends and family I prayed and When I looked up, There, her face blazed down at us From the veins of stars That shone through the darkness In cold, clear air like tonight Childhood roofs Had nothing to do With that moment I looked down And full of thoughts too important for words I tried to be strong Which is how she left us And I held my candle And tried to spread my feelings out as wide as I could Like peanut butter Or curtsy fingers Or anything And even though I didn’t know what to do except remember that moment forever Even though I didnt know if i should stay in the tree anymore Or go I felt so lost after she shone down with her strength Which is how i imagine Maybe she left too And I just bowed my head and promised to remember And work And star burnt Happy but empty Flat like peanut butter And spirit kind of blasted and hungry I tried to be true in the tree for a little longer Even though it wasnt my home And even though I didnt know where to go A little more A lot more love Nothing to do with childhood roofs Or looking for fights Or not knowing what to do And sometimes now when i do things for no reason Even though its not that crazy to plant sunflowers Even though it feels like that kind of radical rebellion That comes from no particular place Summoning things the way i do With a walk in the aisles of target A wander through walmart A few tic tacs in the search bar on amazon I can plant sunflowers It’s not quite rebellion It is a bit of a spectacle Out there at the mailbox After I water them obsessively For the few weeks where they get past being little sprouts After I go stand and look at them Marking and marking their spot Waiting till they are big enough to get more water And not look like weeds Next to the sidewalk Up they go. The first year they were a real riot Lots of fun I now worry about the mailman sometimes Does that person prefer mailboxes that aren’t little (stinging) pollinator oases.. The second year, I think the ground in that little square was not fertile anymore Maybe the soil was a little bit drained Or maybe the funny looking flowers I grew that year Werent from seeds I planted but the overwintered odd ones that didnt get picked away by goldfinches and bobbing bungeeing squirrels But this week I was thinking That of those funny looking flowers That came out with unique faces Not just round steady staring ones But grinning with cheeks and funny green raggedy-ann noses Their friendly leaves like the paws of a fuzzy pet reaching to embrace you A little bit crazy Dancing in the sun all day This week I thought If those stars shone down again while I wasnt looking And froze themselves in a pattern On the face of that sunflower Because it was her face i saw then But i thought it was a coincidence Not Maybe A pattern blazed on the earth by a starry veiny lion of a person blazing on me for a moment And when things shifted Here on earth And the light of that day was remembered Well that night By that beautiful sunflower By my mailbox Could a flower do that And did I plant it for no reason? Do I still do things I dont understand That will make me happy? Before, I did things I think i was looking for some kind of fight But there is a lady in the moon tonight She smiles up And reminds me how i feel about the sky above me And when its getting cold and its clear And im unsure of myself Or feeling heavy Or like a tree is my home or like i can tell the moon how I am feeling And she might be listening And looking, like i do With my heart And the vast and amazing Cold and beautiful sky at night I dont have to give my heart Or make room to tell you When these words come from the sawdust the hardest Toughest Oldest parts of me The fibre of my being And those things i used to do The feelings that come and go The rushes of feeling i have felt in my soul Now when i act My practiced hand I dont know much more about why i do The things that inspire me But I can raise sunflowers And look down from my roof At cold, dewy Red dogwood leaves In the shining black and green grass And be happy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWe are Kieran and Michelle, two 32-year-old William & Mary grads living in Virginia. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|