Category: creative writing
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High tide in yoga class Now it’s time to let go of anything that does not serve you, she says I sink into the stretch Breathe in peace Breathe out pain Harp music: a lullaby melody Hush a bye, don’t you cry… I hear my long-ago self crooning, round baby latched to my breast Blacks and bays, dapples…
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It is the last day of Autumn, a cold, thick-oatmeal gray day, and finally: I put on my rubber boots, and I’m raking leaves. It’s the first time since mid-October that the sleeping leaves have been disturbed, and I quickly realize it’s a bigger job than I thought it would be. I live on a…
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A new poem of mine is up over at everywritersresource.com. Check it out at: Fossils by Elaine Olund I am grateful to my amazing friends who patiently listen and give me a safe place to begin to find my voice. I appreciate everyone who takes the time to stop here on my blog now and…
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Per aspera ad astra (A rough road leads to the stars) Oh, darkest secret, deepest fear: I’m afraid I’ll never see the stars Shining again— Per aspera ad astra A little prayer Warm-breath whispered in my ear By the blind innocent within Who believes in light she cannot see
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I don’t know how I stayed away from the water so long. A (very) minor surgery interrupted my habit of swimming 50 or so laps in an indoor pool, a half-hour meditation for me, where I immerse myself, literally, in a flow of stroking, kicking, turning, pushing off, all the while counting out the laps…
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“I don’t understand,” you commented, “how is it racist? If those kids were raised right—they wouldn’t be shot.” Raised right, commenting friend? I choke on my anger but I’ll try not to judge you I used to believe in TV news and fairy tales, too, but now I want you to imagine reality. Imagine it,…
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Chokehold “I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner’s last words, gasped as Officer Pantaleo’s hands squeezed his windpipe shut. “I can’t breathe,” Garner pleaded as he died, begging— every cell in his body screaming for oxygen. “No reasonable cause,” said the D.A., when the grand jury choked…
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I have been eating poetry Wildly gorging on it, like it was chocolate, and you know— I cannot keep candy in the house. I’d be fat as a tick, as Mama used to…
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I saw a picture of Michael Brown’s mother as she heard the verdict. I felt her mother’s pain radiate into my heart, into my safe flat-screened life a roaring scream— and with the pain, my own weak shame: in my white-bubble youth I was taught justice would be served— to everyone, it says so right…
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Rivers There’s a river in my November sky— a river of fathomless blue sweeping between ice-crusted snowdrift clouds floating high over bare-armed trees and bare-armed people. My teeth crunch an apple my feet crunch leaves as Monday’s snow melts into tiny sidewalk rivelets. A boy zigzags the lawn hunting acorns he trades for tired smiles…
eeo 