2016 NaPoWriMo - Gems

Friday 1st April

Fool's Errand
Clouds in my compass.
Rocks in my pocket.
In one hand a key,
in the other a locket.
I'm a mother, a daughter,
a step-child of heaven;
a Sisyphus sister;
a fool and her errand.

Gold in my teeth.
Weeps in my willow.
A stitch in my side
and snakes on my pillow.
A bruise on my cheek
for the meek shall inherit
a stone to be rolled -
another fool with an errand.
-  Mama Zen


Monday 4th April

Cloud Kittens

Cloud kittens playing
cotton pawed and tummy tumbling
through the blue sky afternoon
mousing a storm.

Sneak, stalk, jump!
Caught in kitten teeth
-pop!- like a balloon
goes the sun.

Thunder stomp stomps
stomps in from the west -
splashing through the puddles
till the whole sky's dripping wet

and cloud kittens shake
rain
from their whiskers
- Mama Zen


Wednesday 6th April

The Bluebird

In yesterdays of peppermint
and temps perdu, you lived with me in
the longhouse, grasshopper thin from fiddling,
a silversmith of backspin. You carved me
a primitive bluebird


put it rounded in my hand
sitting drawn down
on its toes, fledge-etched in cerulean
soap-smooth, autumn-colored circles
at its too-wise eyes.


You smiled when it stirred,
flipped up
a stopsignal tailfeather,

gaped its open throat
for a worm-friend mother.


I set it among the other birds;
no thing of mine, your gift
but wild its own.
Oracle crows, inquisitor cardinals,
insipid chickens pecked it--


but the bluebird rose in
flutterform arpeggios,
and flew
not to me,
not to you.
- Hedgewitch 


Friday 15th April

Recalled Sunlight

Morning found me exploring
around the old chapel again.
The walls, at least, started in the right spots,
though broken plaster had long since yielded
to insistent vines and wings claiming shelter.

Finding my favorite boulder,
I sat, and stretched,
drinking the water I pulled
from the well earlier in my pilgrimage.
It, at least, held up to my memory:
sweet and restorative after the journey made,
fortifying the spirit for what lay further ahead.
The sun dappled boulder was a more congenial spot
to enjoy my libations,
than the hard backed pews,
softened somewhat by the spread of moss.

The water finished, I went around back,
to find the spot I enjoyed hiding in
when I was small.
A sea of violets greeted me,
more dazzling under the stream of sunlight,
than the cold glitter of the stained glass windows,
once whole in the crumbling walls,

My sketchbook came out.
I lost myself in translating petals and leaves
into lines and letters
until the results pleased me.

Only afterwards, I noticed
that although I’d outgrown my hiding spot,
I still had my sweet tooth.
I gathered the violets for candying later.
They would delight my children as well as myself.
Perhaps I would tell them the stories
I found along the way.


Song Choice: Pocket Full Of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield

This poem was inspired by two prompts: A Dash of Sunny's Prompt Nights - A Drop of Sunshine and Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads - Tax Day (use words from T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land. I used violets, wings, well, chapel, memory, broken, and glitter).
- Rommy Driks

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