Snowbird’s Odyssey

Avoidance, we
do it well – displace our
selves to warmer climes
choose a locale by the sea
anoint sunshine as our power,

and when the Ides of March arrive
our restlessness stirs once more
heat turns up and
we escape – renewed drive
leads to home’s door.

(Dark Side of the Moon offers a weekly cinquain challenge.  This week is the Insane Cinquain – check link to learn more. Image from personal collection.)

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Contracting

Problematic situations
invite expansion – ego
near the point of torment

I am outcast –
newcomers fail to understand –
this missing motor

so I retreat –
into distraction
fail to reveal
caregiver

left to seek
scattered connections
self-absorbed

needy, settled
idly moving towards
desolation

abandoned on the edge
of initiation –
ego contracting.

Shoebox Dreams

A simple shoebox, repurposed
with plastered images of dreams –
paper affirmations of aspirations –
shelved and forgotten, its contents

snapshots, faded and torn, remnants
of another time, a different future –
captured when potential was prime
and possibility untainted by illness

this one was retirement – a supposed
celebration – but note how the colour
has drained, the cracks obliterating
pride of accomplishment; and notice

how this one crumbles to the touch –
the fragments dissipating even as
my life has dissipated, the image
lost before memory resurfaces, so

much loss when circumstance dictates
direction, overpowers will, and plans
like snowflakes, vanish in the heat
of reality – pain and insult burning

but wait – this one looks promising –
the edges only slightly torn, the image
discernible – could it be that there is
hope yet – a future author I might be?

That’s the thing about times to come,
we fill them with imaginings, and pray,
our hope, like balloons set free in a sea
of unforeseen challenges, and seldom

does the end result reflect projected
plotting, and yet, there is power in
the dreaming, and so I’ll replace the old
with new photographs to store away.

(Today’s NaPoWriMo challenge asks us to consider future.)

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Ready, Set, Go

Ready?
I scan the agenda,
anxiety clouding interpretation,
false sense of security driving.Ready.

Set?
Have miscalculated expectations,
face adolescent attitudes –
impatience, hunger, angst –
too late to turn back,
I’m engaged.
Set.

Go!
Dive in, creativity flowing,
inner resources my well,
no time for hesitation,
this is life.
Go!