NaPoWritMo 2

NaPoWriMo #2

More Than Once

His footprints capture rainwater like a cup;
this trace too will disappear
when clouds depart.
Earth absorbs water
like a lover mending quarrels,
and grass recovers quickly,
bending back to reach the light.

Nature reclaims her own,
leaves oasis or despair.

But footprints in a desert
cup no rain,
disappear with wind
and the beholder,

and one dies more than once
in a lifetime.


Kathleen L. Smith

Labyrinth

Labyrinth

Many days have I journeyed through the labyrinth,
Placing always
One foot before the other
Methodically, determinedly,
Around the winding paths of forests cool and deep--
Where light is dim no shadows fall--
Across the sere sand of desert years where
Parched and fevered,
Fending off the glaring sun by day
And clinging like a moth to my dreams by night
I muttered my words
Into the deaf ears of languid air
Expecting reverberations from the canyons of the universe,
Yet only echoes of my whispered lament stirred
And clung to me like a chronic ailment.

Once, I rambled through a greening glade,
Moss-fresh air filling my lungs with pneumonic sharpness,
A painful gasping joy that passed like lust
In a hummingbird's flutter,
And I marched fettered for a season after
To a dream that had died in my arms.
My footsteps wore a path around the graveside into a dusty ritual.
Yet even grief grows old and passes with the years into its
Own quiet grave, a hazy memory,
And I moved on without
Quite knowing how or when,
The machinations of the mind a wily creature.

I sought the world again flamboyantly,
Breaking the horns of the minotaur,
And those were the days of the hunter,
Of running wild through the world,
Powerful, austere,
Leaping the labyrinthine walls,
Blood-intent, scent of desire driven,
Demented and flushed with the thrill of the chase.
Once more the journey ended
Abruptly, succinctly,
A curtain falling on another act
And I found myself standing alone in the mezzanine
Applauding an empty stage with the light slyly fading.
Outside, blinking in the daylight,
Surprise mingling with suspicion to find
The afternoon not night and warm and golden still,
I stood for once paused in the leaf-glorious glow of summer,
Inhaling with wonder that had waned long ago in the turnings of the road
The path behind me
And a shadow of self like Dorothy Oz,
Red shoes kicking up clumps of earth
As I ran, walked, danced, plodded,
Clod of a dreamer,
Scarecrow of hope,
Ghost of myself,
And all along the path was mine--
I'd arrived before leaving,
And the journey
Is home.

 All rights reserved KLSMITH

God Bless the Children I Have Loved

God bless the children in my care,
And then as they pass everywhere
Across the seas, beyond my reach
God bless the children who I teach.
May they recall the lessons learned
When they were young, when they were small,
And may those lessons yet return
To help them now when they are tall,
When life gets hard to face and too
When love is lost and friends are few.
God bless the children I have known;
God bless the seeds which I have sown.

The Letter

Dancing down
the castle steps,
down through darkness,
now and then dispelled
by squares of golden sunlight,
through the coolness, and the musty damp
of tapestried halls,
she hastens to the light
like a lark in spring--

Leaving the towers and town behind her,
she follows a meandering path
that leads beyond
the commerce of the village
to a woods,
grasshopper green,
not dark and shadowed,
but slivered by the shafts of sun
which streak the ruby damask of her gown--
She pauses once to listen
to gentle winds which ripple through
the leaves and play upon her mind
a soothing melody.
Then, on again, more quickly,
she seeks her destination,
now within her sight:
a wall of stones,
once carefully placed
by some ancient race
that held with rituals of the moon
and incantations.

She too moves like a priestess
of some ancient rite,
carefully lifting the heavy stone,
stealing shyly the folded missive
from her bodice,
pressing it warmly to her lips
a mere moment
before placing it beneath the
smoothness of the stone.
Her happy laughter seals the spell,
and she runs like a deer
through the green morning.

kathleen l. smith
all rights reserved

I Talk to Stars

I talk to stars
That leap like
Little fish in aqua seas,
Golden, gleaming scales
Of light,
Singing
With celestial voices,
Trailing sky
Meteor-like--
I talk to stars
To glean life’s rhythms,
Rhythms being
All that we can know of Life,
And troll the skies
With dainty spiders’ nets of words
Seeking
Amid the glistening planets
And glowing passions
Of the universe
One petalled harmony
To wildly entwine
In my silky fine
Brown hair--

kathleen l. smith
All rights reserved

Ode on a Nose

This nose
is the same
as my father's nose,
and my grandmother's nose,
and her father's nose,
and who knows
how far back
it goes.
This nose
is genetically imposed
upon my face,
and whether or not I am
ill disposed
to accept it,
the fact is
as plain as the nose on my face
that
only surgical grace
can transform
my face
and replace
this nose.
Yet,
I suppose,
I've grown
rather fond of the
aforementioned
protuberance,
the obnoxious
proboscis,
and, after all,
a nose
with such
distinguished
antecedents
is nothing, I tell you,
to sneeze at.

kathleen l. smith
all rights reserved

Edensong

Paradise won
paradise lost
all for a phone call
small cost
short shrift
seasons pass
paradise regained
at long last
hold on tight
the moment's gone
you blink
you lose
you dream
you're wrong
all for a swell
of Edensong
gone is the romance
lost is the dream
love's not always
what it seems

kathleen l. smith
all rights reserved