Ordinary Is

Ordinary is
feeling like an animated five-year-old
when the rising sun makes patterns through my curtains
that feel like a secret message for me to decipher.

Ordinary is
tasting the alchemy between the elements
that created my morning tea.

Ordinary is
picking up a wriggling earthworm from a puddle
and wondering if it thinks of me as a mad eldritch horror
that had a sudden moment of benevolence.

Ordinary is
tucking in the bones of the flowers that I planted on a whim
under a bed of decomposing leaves
much to the dismay of my HOA.

Ordinary is
staring up at the stars to chat about my day
and the way we always decide

this still isn’t a bad life at all
by the end of our conversation.

Photo by Carl Campbell on Unsplash

Song Choice: Ordinary World by Aurora

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Ordinary.

Today's Story

What story will I tell myself today?
I wonder,
smelling spring green
mixed into November leaf piles.

Will this be the one
about the dancing trees
with the tempo of their sway
commemorated in the bark?

Maybe I’ll think about the lost
autumn wind that shaped the dancers'

trunks and branches
and how it will return
like no time had passed
between meetings.

You sound like a woman who hasn’t given up,
I say, letting my heart take comfort
in the hush-shush song

my feet make when I ramble on
though a field of leaves
only slightly out of my way
on my walk home.

I answer back,
I really haven’t,

at least not this time.

Maybe I really never will, I add,

making another satisfying crunch

in last year's leaves,

while knowing my pen and notebook
are still waiting in the place
I last set them down.

Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash

Song Choice: Anne with an E soundtrack suite.

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings prompt, Dialog.

On Third Thought

The first is pure reaction—
a mallet for what passes
as a kneecap to my psyche.

The second is for holding,
passing it from hand to hand
to check for knubs and hollows.

(I might take some time here,
maybe take it into the shower
and see if it can handle water
or drag it out for a walk
to learn what it does in the sunshine).

The third is the beginning
of what it could grow up to be.
It's much less feral than the other two,
no hissing or biting,
unless it absolutely feels like it.

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash

Song Choice: Think for a Minute by The Housemartins 

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings Prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Three.