Migration

Migration

a folded atlas
a peregrine gaze
they are coming from summer
and traveling to summer
press dreams
like flowers
they shoulder
into distances
powered by the fat back
of summer

Silver Needle

This week's prompt is creative from Mindful Mimi.


"Creation, we are taught is not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel


Silver Needle*

Crossing
the middle bridge
stockings
get caught
in rough planks
by the time
I arrive,
the water
has been resting
coddled buds
float
tiny hairs
uncoil

sit, drink
these
are the
best hours

*Silver Needle - White tea is the least processed form of tea, made from handpicked silver buds and young leaves which are steamed and dried in open air. Silver Needle (Baihao Yinzhen) is the rarest of all varieties, picked in springtime in the Fujian Mountains of China. When the buds are steeped, they yield a light and subtle sweetness.. Successive infusions release subtle qualities of the tea‘s delicate fragrance.



“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”
Maya Angelou


Many writers have a ritual, which serves as an induction, a falling into the deep. For example, Maya Angelou wakes at five in the morning and checks into a hotel room. All pictures are removed from the walls so that there is no visual distraction. She writes on legal pads while resting on the bed with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards, Roget’s Thesaurus and a Bible. She leaves by early afternoon, usually with ten to twelve pages of manuscript. Ms. Angelou reflects that she uses this process to “enchant” herself.
This poem is both about crossing the waters and steeping in that place of enchantment.

starter culture

Thanks to Gautami Tripathy of Rooted for this week's prompt, reincarnation.


starter culture

she called it sour milk
placed a heavy rimmed
glass of lucidity
on the radiator
little did I know
it was a starter culture

From a childhood memory of my mother making what she called “sour milk“. A type of yogurt. Once you have the starter culture, it lives forever…or as long as you keep it going. I see this as a metaphor for infusing “culture” or essence, into life with consciousness and purpose.

Uxmal

Thanks to Nathalie of Spaced Law for this week's prompt, shift in time.

Uxmal
thrice built
groans
beneath the weight
of the living

bulky tourists
exact one more stamp
proof positive
here was maize
daily ground,
rattles shook
at a darkened sky
daughters summered
in cool grottos
fools stuttered riddles
clear as day
royalty strode across
quarried stone

This fugitive hour
I visit the ruins of your hair,
the child in your brow
I roam where your dreams are pastured
fingers spread wide
for night to pour through

how many cities
am I standing on?