The Dawning

That shoot looked like any blade of grass.
Then, hearing springtime’s pitch pipe, it took a breath
And tried its first colors, vocalizing softly in pink,
then lengthening its phrases into purple and yellow.
The world of grass
Welcomed its first flower.

The bee wept at its feet,
And the gospel of pollen
Spread throughout the world.

The Elite Roses

“How sad to be grass,” said the roses
Advancing in their trellis careers.
“Of course,” said the roses at the top,
“They are silent because they are listening,
Listening to us,
And craving to make
The music of color.”
But who knows what the grass was really thinking?
Who among the rich roses actually cared
What the silent grass was thinking?

Roosevelt: Betrayal

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Revisiting

Revisiting what we’ve already learned
Is normal and is nothing to regret;
After all, what we’ve already learned
Is what we are most likely to forget.

Gordon: Things Beyond This Earth

Sympathies exist,
Presentiments and signs
That baffle our mortal comprehension;
To dream or to see
Or to feel or to hear
What seems not to be there.
But such things exist,
Things beyond this earth,
Things beyond our sacred
Thoughts of heaven.
These are the things that reason defies –
But reason sometimes lies.

-Paul Gordon, “Jane Eyre”, a musical based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë

Window Haiku

One dusty window
gives the room its only light –
and that is our faith.

Bishop: One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

-Elizabeth Bishop

“O How Enlightened Are My Bodily Functions”

People think they are so smart when they say _____ has replaced belief in God. What if belief in God is a noun, and _____ is the act of believing in God? And what if that is the only reason _____ can prevail in society?

(Vogue fill-ins for _____ include Art, Poetry, Music, Science, Love…)

Petal Haiku

petals run downstream
like crescent fingers stroking
the hair down your back

Rainstick Haiku

Open a rainstick.
Pour cement over the rice.
Now it’s a rainstuck.