My nostrils are bitten
by the brisk scent of pine,
invigorating, enervating in the rain.
I follow my nose
to two freshly felled stumps
and marvel that death can smell
so very much alive.
poem-pick axe March 14, 2016
I am a pick axe.
I grimly focus on the patch of ground
in front of me, and chip, chip, chip away
at the rocks that block my way.
I will wear down this mountain
day by day.
I will find a seam and harvest value.
Today, it may seem too hard to do,
but I will chip, chip, chip away anyway
until I’ve made a hill of this mountain,
and have found the other side..
.
.
.
I’m smack in the middle of my penultimate grad school course. I’m finding it hard to concentrate, what with the recent family deaths and illness and related stress. After a long day at work, I just want to curl up in a warm corner and snooze. This is a required course, so there’s nothing for it but chipping away at readings, chipping away at assignments, chipping away at papers, and then it’ll be over. One month until the last paper is due, and then it’s through! The end is nigh!
poem-tortoise March 13, 2016
In dreams
I have been gifted with a tortoise.
A slow moving friend who will live long.
When I wake, I google
whether tortoises can lived in a backyard
through Canadian winter.
before I realize it was only
a dream.
poem-serendipity March 12, 2016
Old friend synchronicity
Visiting one,
Another arrives out of the blue.
After forty years,
there are sympathetic vibrations
that draw us together:
joyful serendipity.
poem-tenaciousness March 11, 2016
He walks with a personal cloud
dulling his world, blurring his perceptions.
Walling him in, between tendrils of fog
freezing him in place to avoid falling off the precipice.
Her arms are open with devotion and she calls to him,
but her voice bounces off rocks and mist.
Their mutual affections miss each other
in the haze, but both are sincere and will still be there
when the fog lifts
(or he goes over the cliff).
poem-welcome March 10, 2016
Every day you
walk through the door
wait for the greeting
a joyful embrace
(or in lieu
a wagging tail would do).
poem-anticipated March 9, 2016
Hey, he says.
Hey, she says. You’re on speaker. What’s up?
Where are you?
Thirty minutes from home. Is everything okay?
Yeah. I was just missing you and wondering
when you’d be home.
Soon.
All right. See you…soon. I’m on speaker?
Yup.
Oh. Bye, then.
.
.
.
A little found poem, overheard.
poem-three March 8, 2016
twelve
one
two
three
o’clock.
This hotel room is absent of you,
No lovers’ talk,
just me,
myself,
and seven o’clock is coming far
too soon.
poem- own it March 7, 2016
If you don’t own your own mistakes
acknowledge your culpability
you can never move on.
Your improvement depends on
self-awareness.
Know your weakness, so you
can overcome.
Shawn L. Bird 