Hi friends,
it’s our spring break so I will be mostly offline these next two weeks and not sending out the daily poems. On April 19, you’ll get a big bouquet of two weeks’ worth of daily poems all at once and then we’ll return to the regular daily sending practice.
In the meantime, wishing you all joy,
Rosemerry
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
hope gets a flat tire—
the stubborn heart
starts walking
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged flat tire, hope | Leave a Comment »
lyrics from "The Tide Is High" by John Holt, 1967
Something about the unsinkable reggae beat,
and in just three notes, I’m again my young self,
dancing alone in my bedroom,
singing as if I am one with the song,
as if it were written just for me,
I’m not the kind of girl
who gives up just like that, oh no, oh!
And singing it now on a Sunday afternoon,
I’m caught in a surprise riptide of joy
and start to lilt around the room,
though just moments ago I was weeping,
buried beneath the salt of worry,
but here I am, dancing alone,
hips rocking, my shoulders a rolling sea,
my voice surfing above the bright swell of trumpets.
The tide is high but I’m holding on.
Sometimes a song is a lifeline,
not because it pulls me out of the water,
but because it tosses me deeper in,
and I feel I’m no longer trapping myself
in a life the size of a teacup—
no, in this moment I am oceanic,
an Atlantic of joy, a Pacific of wonder
vast enough to hold everything,
and the tide is high
and all that salt only makes me more buoyant
as I play in the generous waves.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Blondie, buoyancy, music, ocean, salt, singing | 8 Comments »
That love is complicated
is no surprise—
consider the human heart
pumps blood to almost
seventy-five trillion cells,
and if we were to stretch
out our blood vessel system,
it would extend over
sixty thousand miles.
Of course, things
get tangled and messy.
And perhaps, love is also
not so complicated.
Perhaps it’s as easy
as waking up in the night
and feeling the darkness hold us.
As effortless as sipping
sweet licorice tea
and letting it warm the body.
As inclusive as the lily’s white perfume
that touches the whole room.
Yes, perhaps loving is as instinctive
as the human heart that beats
over a hundred thousand times a day—
not because we ask it to,
not because we try,
but because that’s what
it was made to do.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged heart, love, paradox | Leave a Comment »
the new map
life gave me—
a blank page
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blank, map | 2 Comments »
Why would she go to the beach
when she could vacation on Mars?
Plenty of sand there, well, dust, really,
but it’s almost the same.
Wild Rose wants an adventure,
not just a week of sitting on a towel.
Relax? She wants to make history.
She craves things she’s never done before.
Minus eighty degrees Fahrenheit?
She’ll pack down and polypro.
And hasn’t she learned by now to live with cold?
She brings her own heat wherever she goes.
She gives her notice to whatever she’s known,
becomes citizen of her own wild heart
sets her telescope for the distant shore,
so curious, so red, so new.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged mars, travel, unknown, vacation, Wild Rose | 3 Comments »
These poems
are only words
nesting on a page,
but when you read them
they become
hummingbirds—
can you feel
how they are drawn
to the red flower of you,
how it is you
who gives them
the nectar they need,
how it is
what is inside you
that supports
their tiny
fluttering
hearts?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ars poetica, hummingbird, reader | 2 Comments »
Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words plant thousands of tiny malicious seeds
that remain viable for a hundred years,
seeds that spring up in any season,
pushing their basal rosettes
through the rocky soil of self-doubt.
I suspect you don’t even remember casting
the seeds, but I have weeded them
from me for decades, tugged at them,
cursed when the tap roots snap
and the thorned stems of those old words
come back twice as strong.
Sometimes now, there are seasons
when none of your seeds come up.
Sometimes, on purpose, I let them grow and bloom,
surprised that out of something cruel
something beautiful still manages to thrive.
Sometimes those prickly bouquets
help me remember who I’m not, who I am.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cruelty, kids, self doubt, thistle, weeds | 4 Comments »
for all poetry friends
I am perhaps the crow
who, parched, unable to fly,
arrives at the pitcher
and realizes
I cannot reach the water.
But in this story,
there are no pebbles nearby.
In this story,
there are other crows
who arrive, each
with pebbles they drop
into the pitcher.
You, my friends,
are the crows.
Your words
are the pebbles.
And slowly, sweet miracle,
the water rises.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged aesop, ars poetica, crow, fable, friendship, save | 4 Comments »
I love receiving the ONE ART poetry journal almost every day in my inbox … and today it’s my delight to be featured there with two poems!
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »