Napping on a Sunny Afternoon
What could be more pleasing,
Then slipping into bed,
Late in the afternoon,
Sun shinning,
Window open?
Surrounded by cool sheets,
Against warm limbs?
Quiet afternoon house,
Full of lunch?
Sprawling across the middle of the bed?
Dreaming, half sleeping, of romantic moments?
The perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon.
The Wind
The wind whips the juniper against the window.
The blue bird feeder sways and bobs,
Dumping its contents to the ground.
The chickens will be along in the morning
To clean up the spoils.
I find myself drawn into a memory,
Of us as kids in the U-Pump-It gas station,
Joining hands in a circle,
Willing the wind to blow.
We wanted our youthful magic to travel.
That was so many moons ago.
Now I wake to hear the wind at night,
And the magic has been blown aside,
Now my mind is on practical matters,
Like how my trees and fences will fair.
I long to find the fascination of my youth.
To remember to stand in the wind,
My hair twisting and stinging my face,
To remember the power in the wind,
The magic that it sends.
Free Time
What would you do?
If you had all the free time you crave?
What would you change?
Why don’t you do it, now?
TV stole your eyes.
Music stole you ears.
Never time to start.
Never time to finish.
You must change yourself.
Free time is yours when you decide –
Decide to free your time.
Freedom
Freedom is the popular girl at the party,
She sings and dances,
But at the end of the night –
She decides who she is taking home.
At the end of the night –
Freedom is not for everyone.
Some may say she scans the crowd for the alphas,
But she cozies up to everyone for a time,
Some more briefly than others.
I think her taste is more discerning, or perhaps selfish.
I think she likes those that dance with her.
I think she favors those who also sing.
A pity that Freedom misses out –
on those who didn’t have dance lessons,
those with a tone-deaf ear.
Freedom misses out on the wallflower.
Maybe I can help her see –
The beauty in the forgotten people.
They deserve a little time with Freedom too.
March
He met his wife for the first time today,
Though they had been together for years.
She was no longer her father’s daughter,
The way they had remembered her.
She bent low, lacing up her sneakers,
Hair pulled back, out of her way.
Out of her way indeed.
Something shifted in her gonna take it,
Until it was fully positioned in her ain’t takin’ it no more.
For all these differences, she felt more herself than she had ever before.
One foot in front of the other in a sea of sisters.
Filling up the cracks of her broken teacup heart,
Until it was full to overflowing.
She was ready.
This is now.
Monday Haiku
Monday, up early
To run late all afternoon.
The sky is deep blue.
Hot coffee morning,
Banging in the kitchen –
Don’t you know the sun is out?
It has been three days.
Ziggi’s is busy this morning,
But I find a table near the plug on the wall,
Just in case.
I miss the 40 inch tall
Standing tables,
They made long Sunday mornings divine.
Now my hip pinches my nerve
And sciatica screams down my leg and
Back up –
Hard wood chairs.
My friend folds a thick sweater to tuck
Underneath,
Against the hard,
A woolen barrier.
The next table is where
the best sellers are written,
On Sunday mornings,
While I neglect
Three or more books I’ve started
To daydream,
A sip hot coffee.
Exhaust and carburetor fumes hung on his clothes like a poison aura.
“Where did he go?”
She looks up, and tells him,
“He went back home to dance with his demons and his dying dad.”
“Oh.”
Then the smell of the Fast Orange cleaning his hands in sink.
He had been cutting trees to keep her warm.
Later that night, a log rolled off the fire,
Leaving a path of hot stars, like a angry swarm of bees, that she could not pick up with her hands.
She felt foolish for not paying better attention.
Tomorrow the sun will be out, and she will enjoy driving.
The cacophony of open window spring music, from the cars all around.
She will open her fingers and let the air move through them.
The heat of my passion rises,
pulling me apart and running over my flesh.
The sea pulling the tendrils of my shorelines.
I huff and snort like horses after a run.
Tears and sweat of my heroes and widows,
run downstream and over waterfalls.
Ancient lumber jacks shave my trees away like a beard,
and the sheep sheer my grass stubble.
Whales sing melodies softly in my ears.
The thunder of Viking footsteps – a drum.
Birds fly about like unbraided hair.
The ravens like loose eyelashes,
carrying wishes.
My breath hangs in rolling mists all around me.
My eyelids hang heavy with darkness in winter,
but wide in the wee hours of summer.
Sagas float on my wind,
in tongues old as time.
I am new.
Always.
If you listen,
you will hear the story I have to tell.
Christina L. Felton 