A Poem a Day (713): Walk

 
Walk
 
They say you can’t walk on water,
so take it slow. Build a raft of faith tied
with hope, bypass this bottomless void,
coral devoid of pearl. Cover your scars
 
with someone else’s feathers while clownfish
sway in anemones’ arms & you lose your charms
in wishing, take the hits as they come,
wait for the ever-circling shifting sands.
 
They say you lose nothing in waiting,
only time, but time is everything.
You get your allocation, can’t expand on it.
 
You lift mountains trying to find the thing,
search out this invisible, ever-travelling light.
Blink & you might miss it pass you by.
 
We pause to see ourselves, count our lessons
on calendars already etched with bloody crosses.
They paint obstacles and you excavate tunnels,
pack your bag of treasured things and move on.
 
Gold isn’t gold; it can’t be bought.
It’s the one thing you know, the one thing
they can’t take away from you.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 24, 2025

A Poem a Day (712): Numb

 
Numb
 
In the rain
she feels everything,
hears morning rise,
the ache of the world
in the break of dawn,
feels the switch,
a pause she cannot fill,
a sense of emptiness,
the knowing of being
nothing at all.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 24, 2025

A Poem a Day (711): Musical notes

 
Musical notes
 
He can’t live with it
tethered in silence,
always locked inside,
so he wrote a note,
just for her.
 
But she never read it.
 
It travelled between places,
swept up by the west wind,
caressed by strangers’ hands,
misunderstood.
 
She lived her life in flow,
swept up in rhythmic tides,
never heard his story,
never knew what he held inside.
 

He kept his heart quiet.
 
Somewhere, this note,
it still travels,
experiences many lives,
but never encounters love.

 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 24, 2025