Ode

Earth was written in the spring

By a soft shade sunrise creaking quietly awake

From an eternity of hibernation, each ray

Slowly caressing this new beginning to speak.

Blooming words pushed up from fresh soil:

White roses, daffodils, iris and, rising taller,

Red tulips, a declaration of eyes opening and

Smiles emerging in pastel blushes.

Each year this poem is read aloud 

To a soundtrack of tremolo birdsong

That grows in intensity to a burst of violins

As we are reminded to shed skin, open arms,

Free our limbs and start again, this time,

With hope.

Inspired by: http://www.napowrimo.net/2014/04/lucky-thirteen/

To have unanswered questions is to be alive!

"I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." -Rainer Maria Rilke in "Letter to a Young Poet"

To have unanswered questions is to be alive!

I breathe in curiosity, I breathe out inquiries.

Each one unfolds as a flower blooming: slowly

With grace, beautiful to watch at every moment

So that each spring I have a garden where I lay,

Thankful for purpose:  another answer to seek.

Catalyst

What luck! A white rabbit beast has graced my lawn;

While lost, my hand, drags nervously among the grass-

I give its contents to the fresh teeth of my new talisman

And he leaves his burrow to bestow a secret:

“Life is not ringing loud enough,” his lisp declares;

“We must break free of your arms-

 Embrace the plethora of cathartic conversation 

You refuse to believe you can demand.” 

Thus, I leave the church, this first time;

I leave the yard where I cannot sleep!

I watch the rabbits gaze of empathy; the clock timing all that I just lost- 

The rewards of my way home are plotted carefully

In heavy footsteps through bloody yards.

Synchronicity! I left a message for the other side. I will become the person 

My rabbit wants me to be.

Tucson Spring

#13/30

Spring brings flowers blooming in unexpected places,

Most surprisingly among the sharp needles of cacti.

In showy routine they change to fruit;

Folding closed and maturing into nourishment.

I never planned to put down roots among these blossoms

But I died here and spilled seeds into soaking monsoon soil.

Now I grow and bloom again and again like the cactus flowers;

In an enduring Spring I fold, mature, and transform into fruit.