Dancing in the Dark

Dancing in the Dark

 

My friend, the moon, is hanging about

In the dark waiting for me to come outside

and dance with him. The wind is whistling a

waltz, so I kick off my shoes gliding across the

grass, as dew drops nibble kisses on my toes.

 

 

My Life as a Word Junkie

My Life as a Word Junkie

 

I search them out, put them

on lists, hoard them for myself

I secret them away on scraps of

paper and keep them in rows in

the depths of old journals.

I snatch them from the pages

of books and catch them as they

tumble from the mouths of friends

and strangers. I hum them to myself

even when there is no music. I seek

their meanings in a tattered dictionary

and find their relatives between the covers

of a thesaurus. They comfort me

in the middle of the night and sooth

me during storms. Each one is unique,

perfect as it is, and sometimes I string

them together into poems.

A Brighter Day

A Brighter Day

 

Same Carols, same twinkling lights

Same Santa ringing a bell

Year by year the people notice

less and less, taking it for granted

Until a small girl in a red hat

walked down the city street. When

she smiled, she tinseled the whole day

We Come Once More

We Come Once More

We come, once more, to this
thankful
season. A time of introspection for
poets
whose cups spill over with syllables of love,
with souls
filled to the brim with joy and sadness, and hearts
that beat
out the rhythm of life and death
with truth.

waltmarie poetic form

The Squirrel Forest

The Squirrel Forest

She laughs at the squirrel running
back and forth across her yard
frantically burying acorns in random

places. Will it ever remember
each spot so it can return in barren
winter to dig up that morsel?

She knows that in the spring
she will be pulling saplings from
her flower beds, left overs from

some hidden bounty. As she watches,
she wanders if it might have been squirrels
that planted the forest at the edge of her yard.

Changing Wind

Changing Wind

The wind came blowing through
the trees today, making the leaves
shiver in fear. It was a changed wind,
colder, more sinister. The clouds were
rudely pushed aside by this bully wind and
I heard it whisper through my window,
“Ready or not, here I come.”

Smoke Signals

Smoke Signals

Puffs of white clouds drift
slowly past like cosmic
smoke signals, carrying
messages that I do not
understand. I wish for words
that I can see written across
the sky, or a whisper from deep
inside the biggest cloud that
I can hear. I watch them scurry
away, pushed by the wind, the
way they’ve always done and
I think they are trying to tell me
the world is still turning and
all will be well.