Being Human

I wonder if the Sun debates dawn
some mornings
not wanting to rise
out of bed
from under the down-feather horizon
if the sky grows tired
of being everywhere at once
adapting to the mood
swings of the weather
if clouds drift off
trying to hold themselves together
make deals with gravity
to loiter a little longer
I wonder if rain is scared
of falling
if it has trouble
letting go
if snow flakes get sick
of being perfect all the time
each one
trying to be one-of-a-kind
I wonder if stars wish
upon themselves before they die,
if they need to teach their young
how to shine
I wonder if shadows long
to just-for-once feel the Sun
if they get lost in the shuffle
not knowing where they’re from
I wonder if sunrise
and sunset
respect each other
even though they’ve never met
if volcanoes get stressed
if storms have regrets
if compost believes in life
after death
I wonder if breath ever thinks of suicide
if the wind just wants to sit
still sometimes
and watch the world pass by
if smoke was born
knowing how to rise
if rainbows get shy back stage
not sure if their colors match right
I wonder if lightning sets an alarm clock
to know when to crack
if rivers ever stop
and think of turning back
if streams meet the wrong sea
and their whole lives run off-track
I wonder if the snow
wants to be black
if the soil thinks she’s too dark
if butterflies want to cover up their marks
if rocks are self-conscious of their weight
if mountains are insecure of their strength
I wonder if waves get discouraged
crawling up the sand
only to be pulled back again
to where they began
if land feels stepped upon
if sand feels insignificant
if trees need to question their lovers
to know where they stand
if branches waver at the crossroads
unsure of which way to grow
if the leaves understand they’re replaceable
and still dance when the wind blows
I wonder
where the Moon goes
when she is in hiding
I want to find her there
and watch the ocean
spin from a distance
listen to her
stir in her sleep
effort give way to existence.

by Climbing PoeTree

They Say It’s the Best Bloom in Ten Years

She wants to go see the bluebonnets, she says.
This is after she tells me they’ve said she has three months to live.
And I want to find her vast fields of bluebonnets,
acres and acres of white-tipped blue bloom.
And I want to send her more springs to see them in,
more days to live one day at a time. I want to remove
the pain in her belly, the pain that aggressively grows.
I want to make deals with the universe. Want to say no
to the way things are. I want to tell death to wait.
I want to tell life to find a way. I want to hug her
until she believes she’s beloved. I want to give her
the pen that will write every brave thing
that she’s been unable to say. There are days
when we feel how uncompromising it is, the truth.
How human we are. There are days when the bluebonnets
stretch as far as the eye can see. There are days
we know nothing is more important than going to see them,
a billion blue petals all nodding in the wind, teaching us to say yes.

         —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

For the Sake of Strangers

No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another—a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them—
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.

--Dorianne Laux

The Spring Offensive of the Snail

Living someplace else is wrong
in Jerusalem the golden
floating over New England smog,
above paper company forests,
deserted brick textile mills
square brooders on the rotten rivers,
developer-chewed mountains.
Living out of time is wrong.
The future drained us thin as paper.
We were tools scraping.
After the revolution
we would be good, love one another
and bake fruitcakes.
In the meantime eat your ulcer.

Living upside down is wrong,
roots in the air
mouths filled with sand.
Only what might be sang.
I cannot live crackling
with electric rage always.
The journey is too long
to run, cursing those
who can't keep up.

Give me your hand.
Talk quietly to everyone you meet.
It is going on.
We are moving again
with our houses on our backs.
This time we have to remember
to sing and make soup.
Pack the Kapital and the vitamin E,
the basil plant for the sill,
Apache tears you
picked up in the desert.

But remember to bury
all old quarrels
behind the garage for compost.
Forgive who insulted you.
Forgive yourself for being wrong.
You will do it again
for nothing living
resembles a straight line,
certainly not this journey
to and fro, zigzagging
you there and me here
making our own road onward
as the snail does.

Yes, for some time we might contemplate
not the tiger, not the eagle or grizzly
but the snail who always remembers
that wherever you find yourself eating
is home, the center
where you must make your love,
and wherever you wake up
is here, the right place to be
where we start again.

-- Marge Piercy

Listen,

I want to tell you something. This morning
is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris,
peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing. I want to say,
wake up, open your eyes, there’s a snow-covered road
ahead, a field of blankness, a sheet of paper, an empty screen.
Even the smallest insects are singing, vibrating their entire bodies,
tiny violins of longing and desire. We were made for song.
I can’t tell you what prayer is, but I can take the breath
of the meadow into my mouth, and I can release it for the leaves’
green need. I want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice
of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils. The cardinals’
red song dances in your blood. Look, every month the moon
blossoms into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.
And then it blooms again.

--Barbara Crooker