A Poem a Day (370): The unclearing

 

 

 

The unclearing

 

We wash a childlike glee

out of our hair, out of our day,

filling the blanks with lists

of things we need to do.

 

Endless tasks, pigeon holes,

tanked-up ideas newly flown,

and trivial are our dreams

held up against the real world.

 

We live in caves without walls

beside oceans bereft of waves,

lit by a sun gone AWOL

in a sky no longer seeking blue.

 

We stand. We sit. We sleep.

We talk of things in double prose,

hunting words we long forgot,

fixing them into sentences too small.

 

Everyone waits for the wind to blow

from the east, the great unclearing

of dust and rag and bone,

rattling this cage of sameness

 

to breathe in a life unworn.

It rushes in with an open door,

born of thought, bearing truth,

smoking what we lost along the way.

 

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 3, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

A Poem a Day (369): Daughter

 

 

 

Daughter

 

She will open our door in the morning

when the clock chimes the nineth hour

and a taxi will wait at the end-path,

the beginning of her drift away.

 

She will kiss my cheek at eight o’clock,

hug me as I make toast and tea,

squeeze fresh orange and tease our dog,

tell me things I’ll misunderstand.

 

She will tell me how she’ll miss us all

as she carries her case out the doorway

and walks her lifeline to the car,

following her own heart as she must.

 

She will wave as my morning caves in

and I will force a smile and wave back.

I will close the door and stand quite still,

and then will begin my great unravelling.

 

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 2, 2021

 

 

 

 

A Poem a Day (368): The bee

  

 

 

The bee

 

Paper curls,

a lime-green hand unfurling

fragile flowers, brushed by breezes

sending petal scents afar.

 

A bee lands,

writes a letter in pollen stolen,

relishing the taste of it all.

And leaves the flower empty.

 

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 1, 2021