The River Called to Me

The river called to me

With a voice born out of eternity

Fluent in all languages

Come

Rest

By my sparkling water

A silver ribbon in a dark forest.

Photo by the author

For the backstory on this poem, visit byalannnapass.com

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Intuition

It’s there

Sometimes buried under piles of laundry

Or dirty dishes

Grey Zone

There is a space

Between endings and beginnings

A quiet valley

Full of swirling grey mist

All sense of direction

Lost

 

The Letters I Wrote

The letters I wrote

were long-winded affairs

often written over a span

of several days

 

The letters I wrote

Documented the life of a young woman

Creating her own story

Capturing her memories through

Eyes of naivety and wonder

 

Handprint on the Universe

Put your handprint on the universe

Run through the cosmos

Hopping from asteroid to asteroid

Leaving your mark

Write your poems &

Draw your pictures on planets

Someday

The somedays roll past

Like tumbleweeds on a desert highway

Piling up on fences

The “It”

She wanted to know what the “it” was

A fair question to be pondered on a blog

Several commenters responded “YES, YES, where is the It?

It escapes me!

 

Song of the Earthworms

The earthworms sing about rain

While we complain

Jolly songs as they move the soil

With their soft heads

Seed Catalogs

They arrive like expected guests

In the days after the New Year

A steady parade of seed catalogs

All shapes and sizes

From varying corners of the country

Filled with beckoning colored photographs

Of fruit, vegetable, & bloom waiting to fill the garden

Ready to awaken the winter-weary to a fresh frame of mind

The possibilities of the planting season.

Purr

The stray cat cries pitifully at the door

waiting to be fed

a feast of canned food atop dry

with a tiny bowl of fresh cream.

My Mother

MY MOTHER  

doesn’t want to eat much

take her pills

shower

exercise

or remember I lived in this house

for half my childhood

CHECKLIST

High School

CHECK

college

CHECK

work

CHECK

marriage,  divorce,  marriage, child, divorce

CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK

Take Your Earbuds Out

Take Your Earbuds Out

I am talking to you

Let me see your eyes

I am a human

Trying to connect with you

Another human

 

Cartwheels on Couch

When I watch them on TV

in my warm house

those athletes a world away

flying through the air

I Miss Rotary Phones

I miss rotary phones

the kind where you put your finger in the hole of the dial

rotating it clockwise until it stopped

then releasing it to get a satisfying

click , click, click as it unwound

taking up to several seconds per number

Stray Cats on Porch

They come in the night

Wild-eyed, wary belonging to no one

caught in the netherworld

of feral and domestic

Farmhouse

I have no granite countertops

nor hardwood floors

an old white electric range

and a portable dishwasher

do the cooking and the dishes

Butterflies

“You could sell those”

a familiar phrase

then watch my passion

turn to drudgery

Shoe Boxes

When I die he will find them

Decades of my life

Stored in shoe boxes upstairs

Bird Feeder

The Chickadee stated its presence in the branches above

“Chicka-dee-dee-dee”

“Chicka-dee-dee-dee”

Impatient

I fill the old mossy wooden feeder that hangs from a tree limb

With an abundance of shiny, black, sunflower seeds

From the  bucket hanging on my arm.

Lap Swim

 

 

 

 

Lost in a fluid world

Bubbles of air

Stream past my ears

 

Farewell 2017

The year 2017 slunk away

Like stray cat that lost a fight

Leaving bloody tracks and tufts of fur

In its wake

 

The flood waters have receded

Fires still burn to the south

Refugees across the globe pray for safety

The homeless seek shelter

And the men still beat their chests in Washington

Shouting over truth

On This Last Eve

On This Last Eve

There are no more squares to fill

Nor pages to turn

Nothing can be changed

But how we act tomorrow

And how we think about the past.

The Longest Night

 

 

 

 

 

The pages turned

one by one

and we’ve arrived at the end again

to the longest night, the chill of December

finding its way through our thick clothing.

 

YES

THERE IS NO MAGIC

I just said

YES

Wild hairs sprouted

I chose to tend them

Now I have flowers.

A TREE MEMORY

The fire burned hot

the memories of the stately tree wafting skyward

up through the chimney

to eternity

A century of shade and thousands of nuts

gathered by humans, squirrels & birds

is no longer

CONCERT

Alto

Third row

Middle

Practice behind me

Audience before me

The piano preludes

The conductor cues

Hands in Clay

When my hands touch clay

I lose myself

Deep in the soft, smooth sensation of mud

Sliding between my fingers