A knock at the door,
The phone ringing,
In the early hours.
My voice husky with sleep.
No surprise rising within my breast.
No shock rippling through the fog of my brain.
Nothing created the normal human responses after all the years.
So many years of one emergency after another,
Had made me numb.
Nothing will change for hours,
So why bother to wake me?

Everything comes from a first.
A house from the first brick.
A love from a first kiss.
A life from a first step.

Before you can build,
There must be a plan.
Guided by the laws of nature,
Guided by passion.

Houses have blue prints.
Love the laws of attraction,
A life…

I sit still.
Idle in indecision.
Lamenting all the plans I have made that lead to this place.
I have always had a plan,
A plan that would inevitably fail.

Now I am plan-less and boundless,
And unmoving.
The whiteboard before me mocks me.
What if my plan was to have no plan.
Outside of work hours,
Allowing myself to tumble in chaos.
Not on the fringe but right in the fray.
See where this wild life will land me and plan me.

I feel the flower awakening.

It is in my chest,

and as I open myself

to all that is new,

I feel the petals loosen

and peel away from the tightly wound bud.

Layers of beauty and scent opening,

a lotus from the dark mud,

with infinite blooming.

 

Even as I smell the freeze of winter

creeping slowly from the mountains,

I tend my garden.

Even as petals fall away with age,

new ones appear,

fresh and resilient.

 

I am infinitely opening to all that is new.

I am infinitely opening to all that is fresh.

I am infinitely opening to the beauty born of darkness.

 

#inktober #firehouseartcenter #artsonfire #poetryonfire

She swims through the cold current,
And she will not be fooled by your clever ties,
Or shinny bobbles.
She hasn’t made it this long falling for the average bait.
She holes herself up in the shadows and eddies.
She blends in and with swish is gone.
Only the most skilled angler will catch her with a barbed hook.
And when that happens her mouth will be agape with surprise.

I scroll passed the news of the day,

numb,

mindless.

Looking for evidence that you exist,

that you may care for me.

Nothing.

Just empty silence and

numb,

mindless,

scrolling.

 

#inktober #firehouseartcenter #artsonfire #poetryonfire

Her dresser bares a ring

from when,

as a young girl,

she left a sweaty soda can,

and ruined the finish.

 

Now a ring has left its mark on her,

tearfully she traces

the path,

round and unending,

of her presumed ruined life.

 

But her tears giggle –

of joy,

of freedom,

of breaking the circle,

of stepping off the wheel,

of refusing to kiss the ring.

 

#inktober #firehouseartcenter #artsonfire #poetryonfire