
Top off tank with stardust
Test run take off system
Check navigation home from blue planet
Remix galaxy-long playlist
Obtain star-trip snacks, Red Vines not Twizzlers
Compile test reports
…
Put back human
writer, storyteller, veteran (see BirchBark Editing.com and MaxieJaneFrazier.com for more)
Top off tank with stardust
Test run take off system
Check navigation home from blue planet
Remix galaxy-long playlist
Obtain star-trip snacks, Red Vines not Twizzlers
Compile test reports
…
Put back human
My teeth were gone
By the time you
Called the vet with the
Needle.
Mine had become
Bran-mash-applesauce mornings and
Creaking out to the great oak.
Following it’s shade.
I wish I knew how to tell you
“Don’t cry,” when
you pressed our foreheads together .
How to say that
Those bones you found
Were Fred who
Pulled the mower for
His own hay before I and even you were born.
He claims he was dapple gray.
How could I know?
These days, our bones
Are resting.
Our present is a dream of the past:
Apple cores and chubby children’s hands.
Mostly, though, deep sleep and
Galloping through the
Tangled roots of the
Great oak.
One
Turn
Begets
Another
Spiraling beyond
Onward and up, infinitely
I,
Too.
Brushing
Fingertips
Hot flesh reaching yours,
Smoldering, sparks, bursting aflame
One
Touch
Begets
Another
Spiraling beyond
Inside and up, infinitely
A smear in my conscousness,
Mere wisp of genius and
Traces where the eraser
Touched lightly.
What was that moment
When I solved the universe?
Aliens whispering non-words.
The pattern clicked.
I trace the arc of a
Red-tailed hawk,
Lazy circles belying
Life or death seconds.
Beneath the mulch-straw,
Garlic pushes its green snout up
While a vole
Noses by.
I dreamed the future and
Woke up to the past.
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to take a line from prose that we love, make that line the title, write the poem based on the title, then change the title. I pulled from the opening of the brilliant Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter.” Something smeared on a blackboard became this little poem.