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Contemplation
Little girl had dark eyes
Like chocolate fireflies
On the porch at nightfall
Scattering sunflower seeds.
It was a jump rope she held
On her seven year old birthday
Making an arch in the air
Small carving of sky
Then it fell, broken on the sidewalk.
It was a plastic toy my Grandma held
In the shape of a troll
From the movie Trolls—
I got it from a McDonalds box
It was the last thing I could give her, along with my card
Christmas 2017
She died holding it in some hospital far away
It was removed from her cold white fingers.
Outside, Arctic winds swept across the windows
Dying shadows in the air throbbed.
This morning my first thought was
What if the dead aren’t really sleepers
What if we living people are all asleep
And when we die we get to wake up?
I glanced bleary-eyed at life
As though it were a cringy meme
Something only worth a moment’s laugh.
Autumn leaf—
Six-pointed dancer
Yellow windy whirl
Brilliant in sunlight
Foliage over my summer head
Turns to soft ground beneath my feet
Delicate ballet dancer, arabesque
Six pointed snowflake
The dance of death
Tiny ashes of bones falling
My feet dance on the white invisible angels
Children lie down and wave their arms
Spinning angels on the frozen ground
Sky like an icy blue lake, like a fathomless blue bead—
The saddest sound,
The saddest sound.
Look to the dandelion, look to the thorn
Look to the water
The sea pounds its gentle stone
Look to the rain flowered windows
Look to the soul in your deepest pillow
When nights grow long
When new moons are born.
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This article has 1 comment.
those first to lines killed me!!!! sooooooooooooooo pretty!!!
This poem may sound suicidal or mentally disturbed because it talks about death, but please please don't think that's what I mean. Not at all. It is a graceful reflection about many things I know--nature, old friends, grandparents, and more.
Contemplation is a heady spiritual word, but it's the only one that would fit for this poem's title.
I haven't written many short stories lately. When I do, they're usually prose poems. I don't really have the brains or time for short stories or longer stories these days.