Waiting for Crocus

If I stand here long enough
I might see a crocus bloom.
But I’d likely freeze to death

before that happened.
Only my bones left
when the snow has melted

to see the purple fingers
of newborn crocus
reaching for the sky.

My ribcage could be
a serviceable cathedral

for mousely vows
said under springtime moons
and earthworm princes
to find the objects of their quests.

I’m afraid I’m too selfish to share
this space my heart is used to
taking up with just any random
invertebrate or rodent.

So I’ll pull my hat down lower
to cover up the howling of the wind,

go inside where my tea waits for me,
and come back to this place
when the crocus is ready for me.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Song Choice: The Waiting by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writings, Feast or Famine. 

Overheard Myself

I overhear my own words
from the past wriggling through
my multi-muffling and insulating layers

and wonder
what happened

to make me forget
I too could take comfort

in their life-giving warmth?

Photo by Brecht Denil on Unsplash

Song Choice: Where Did the Rock Go? from School of Rock the Musical

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings post, So, I Overheard...

this is what it's like

this is what it means to be alive: 

coming in from an icy rain,

too petulant to be proper snow

you sit near a fire

with plastic logs that never burn

but are thankful

for the warmth and the view

 

this is what comfort tastes like—

a delight of mingled simple and familiar

flavors in a perfect bowl of rice

 

you eat and remember stories

about a god in every grain of rice

and a god of rice and foxes

 

for a moment you are a child again,

pretending you are a happy fox

in a den miles away from

human decisions and consequences

 

you eat slow, so slow,

greeting the god in every grain,

indie rock serenading the traveling gods

as their journey intersects yours

 

this is what it’s like remembering

you don’t want the jarrito

because even almost a year later,

it will still taste like tears instead of pineapple

the tears will come anyway,

so you may as well have the jarrito

 

this is what it’s like remembering,

laughter still exists 

and it feels so good to laugh with a lover 

about wisteria in the winter

although spring is so far away

 

you remind yourself

this is what it’s like to be alive,

warm, and sated—a blessing

 

of food in the belly,

music and laughter in the background,

in spite of the storm.

Photo by Maurice Sahl on Unsplash

 

Song Choice: What a Wonderful World covered by The Ramones

 

I Resolve

to stop portioning my heart
into subsistence-sized mouthfuls
only to achieve acceptable starvation.

I resolve to honor its messy,
bloody wholeness
filled with contradictions and dual realities.

I resolve to treat it gently
after hard days and harder decisions,
when even honoring the necessary and the true
bring out the covered-over bruises.

I resolve to make my heart
a partner, not an enemy,

to acknowledge the fighter it has always been, 

and allow it the tenderness it always deserved.

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

Song Choice: I am Enough by Daphne Willis