They murmur beneath their breath difficult woman, obstinate girl, opinionated, shrew, man-eater,
they shout to my face unfuckable, impossible, what a waste
of a body,
The tree was so majestic
and very, very tall
So when I stood beneath it
I felt very, very small
The mass of green above me
with branches spreading wide
overpowered my senses
and I felt small inside
Let it roll on my tongue, get pressed to my inner cheek, let it
fall out to the earth, let the solar rays shine on it,
the rain hammer over it,
the soil encapsulate it,
have it arise.
I am not in love with anyone. Pablo Neruda, Nikki Giovanni,
Shakespeare, and all his fair women, dressed in men’s robes,
have nothing on me.
Flinty, unyielding; that is what they called me.
No tree could brace against my wind.
In my savage silence, I could sabotage all lovers’ din;
heavy, and unmatchable, though, I strike a rock in orange brightness.
A fragile morning found me
fragile that I am
and gently took me to the day
to prove it was no sham
I leant upon its shoulders
It supported me right there
and showed me a bright sunrise
as I squinted in the glare
I had a dream that Trajan’s Column fell on top of me,
That blue canaries crowed and cawed,
That to ride a minnow I first had to become small and the minnow
Large; I had a dream that tramontana
Stole me from my crib, and set me down upon a mountain and told me,
It is freedom and power and love and magic
and heaven and life and much more
It is friendship and companion and all of these things
and is something I completely adore
The power of music
to lift and release
be it with excitement
or calming and peace
Exuding a something
you can’t quite explain
it does over and over
again and again
There are times when a song strikes a note
When we ponder all that we might feel inside
Lyrics might not mean what we think we heard
Yet the melody still takes our mind on a ride.
Poet's Corner 